


A King Without Distraction

by Dinadette



Category: Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel - James Luceno, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Alexander Freed, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: ? - Freeform, Adultery, Advice, Age Difference, Age Play, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Altered Mental States, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anger, Angst, Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Attraction, Awkward Boners, Awkward Flirting, Bad Advice, Bad Jokes, Ballroom Dancing, Banter, Begging, Betrayal, Bisexual Orson Krennic, Blackmail, Blood, Blood Kink, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Boners, Boys Kissing, Bragging, Bruises, Bulges, Chair Sex, Cheating, Childhood Memories, Choices, Class Differences, Closeted Character, Clothed Sex, Clothing, Clothing Kink, Cock Tease, Cock Worship, Colors, Comfort Sex, Compare and Contrast, Confessions, Consent Issues, Consent Shift, Corporal Punishment, Corruption, Creepy, Creepy Fluff, Cruelty, Crying, Dacryphilia, Daddy Kink, Death Star, Death Threats, Declarations Of Love, Denial, Denial of Feelings, Desire, Dirty Talk, Disturbing Themes, Divorce, Doppelganger, Dream Sex, Dreams and Nightmares, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Kissing, Drunken Shenanigans, Dubcon Cuddling, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Embarrassment, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, Erections, F/M, False Accusations, Family History, Family Issues, Fantasizing, Fashion & Couture, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fear, Feeding, Feelings Realization, Feminization, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time for Everything Fest, First time with a man, First time with a woman, Flirting, Foodie Krennic, Forbidden Love, Forced Marriage, Foreplay, Forgiveness, Frottage, Fucked Up, Genocide, Gloves, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Guilt Trip, Gun Kink, Gunplay, Hair, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Hatred, Headaches & Migraines, Heavy Angst, Help, Holding Hands, Holovid (Star Wars), Homophobic Language, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, Hypocrisy, Idealism, Imperial Culture, Imperial Jyn Erso, Imperial Officers, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Innuendo, Insults, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, Jealous Jyn, Jealousy, Judgment, Kissing, Kneeling, Lap Sitting, Last Kiss, Lies, Light Petting, Long Hair, Loss of Control, Loss of Virginity, Love Confessions, Love/Hate, Lust at First Sight, Lust to love, M/M, Makeup, Manipulation, Marriage Proposal, Marriage of Convenience, Masturbation, Memories, Mild Blood, Military Homophobia, Military Ranks, Military Uniforms, Mind Games, Minor Galen Erso/Orson Krennic, Minor Violence, Miscommunication, Misogyny, Misunderstandings, Mocking, More like No Trust Kink, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Murder Kink, Mutual Masturbation, Name Changes, Nausea, Nauseating Traditions, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Not My Fault, Objectification, Office Sex, Older Man/Younger Woman, On the dark side, Opposites Attract, Orgasm Delay, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, POV Jyn Erso, POV Orson Krennic, Pain, Painful Sex, Panic, Panic Attacks, Parent-Child Relationship, Partner Betrayal, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pet Names, Pillow Talk, Poor Life Choices, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Behavior, Post-Coital Cuddling, Post-Wedding, Power Dynamics, Power Exchange, Power Imbalance, Power Kink, Power Play, Praise Kink, Pregnancy Kink, Premature Ejaculation, Pretend, Pride, Prison, Propaganda, Pseudo-History, Public Claiming, Public Display of Affection, Public Humiliation, Public Masturbation, Punishment, Put downs, Recovered Memories, Regret, Revenge, Revenge Marriage, Revenge Sex, Rimming, Robots, Rough Kissing, Secretly a Virgin, Seduction, Seduction to the Dark Side, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Self-Indulgent, Self-Sacrifice, Sex Crying, Sex Talk, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Inexperience, Shame, Simultaneous Orgasm, Situational Humiliation, Slut Shaming, Smutty Angst, Sociopathy, Stereotypes, Stockholm Syndrome, Storm Trooper, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Threats, Surprise Kissing, Swearing, Symbolism, Sympathy for the Devil, Tagging as I go, Taking Advantage, Talk of Pregnancy, Tarkin is an abusive asshole, Taunts, Tea, Teasing, Tenderness, Threats, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Traditions, Trust Issues, Trust Kink, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Lust, Unwanted Attraction, Unwanted Lust, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Vague, Verbal Humiliation, Very Bad Advice, Victim Blaming, VirJyn, Virgin Jyn, Virginity, Virginity Kink, Virginity or Celibacy Kink, Voyeurism, Vulnerability, Waiters & Waitresses, Walk Of Shame, Wedding Night, Weddings, angsty smut, asking for help, bisexual galen erso, casual evil, casual mention of genocide, closest tag I found for dark or grey Jyn..., comparing father and daughter, consent for bad bad reasons, creepy ones, cuddling and corrupting, death kink, don't give in Jyn, droid, empire culture, excruciatingly described masturbation, excruciatingly detailed blow job, fashion droid, for now, formality, fucked up tenderness, fucking guilt trip tbh, fucking the family, fucking the father marrying the daughter, genocide kink, hand kiss, jyn needs parents, kindof, krennic - Freeform, lies to oneself are the worst, lol, marital duty, marriage as justification of noncon or something, misplaced pity, never do a guy cuz you're afraid he'll cheat, no means yes, oh Galen, only in fanfic, only the best for krennic, possible underage, public inappropriate touching, punishing another, rejecting responsibility, she imagines him doing it, slight - Freeform, smug, so much, still tagging as i write, talk of divorce, tarkin cameo!, tarkin makes it all worse, tarkinsane, the cape - Freeform, traumatized minor character, ultimate love hate, unwanted arousal, we need some self esteem, wedding gown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2019-08-27 07:30:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 40,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16698088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dinadette/pseuds/Dinadette
Summary: Still looking for a beta :)Will Jyn sacrifice herself and marry Krennic, the man she hates more than any other?Please check the TAGS.-Don't hate me! I have the opportunity to publish this… But I'd need a dedicated, passionate beta reader who would of course get the final result for free, as well as the sequel I'm writing for it. Please leave a comment/email/whatever :*-





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- I live for reviews, good, bad, neutral, they always help! -  
> The title is for Pascal's quote, and Jean Giono's masterpiece. A king without distraction is a man full of misery indeed...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's some serious dubcon here, though it remains non smutty. Bear in mind.

"You will marry me, Jyn Erso".

 

It is a statement, not a question. The words' order is just wrong. The whole thing. 

 

 

 

 

Her complexion and general coloring is darker than her father's he hates, inherited from her mother he hates even more. Her warm eyes take in the man she will have to kill. He is tall, slim but well-built, unless the uniform does that. And this uniform… White, ornate, glistening in insignia, and the cape. She can't help staring. He has that sort of glamour others want to despise yet have to admire, at least a tad. The military composure somehow doesn't prevent a certain refined, almost feminine grace, something mild and frivolous in the bearing. When he speaks, she listens to his voice, courteous and educated - sophisticated - for an instant before she understands.

 

Her hair is a mess and he is perfection. She cannot deny the charisma, the charm, though she would hate to put it as such. She takes a quick gulp of air.

Her cheeks burn but she taunts all the same. "Heh… not into grave robbing". 

"I do not care what you are _into_. This is for your own good". The Director makes a gesture like to push back his cape behind his back, except it already is there. She draws strength from knowing this must be an instinctive nervous gesture.

"Got it. You're going to kill me if I don't comply. Skip the bantha shit", she snarls.

"What? No. Not _you_ ". He says nothing else, he doesn't need to. "But as I said, it is for your sake that I actually will _marry_ you". She understands that too. He could easily take what he wants, if he manages to force her, blackmail her, or has some troopers willing to hold her down. She shivers at the thought, wanting to retch.

 

"How tragic", she attacks. "The famous Director, all but the Empire poster child, unable to find a woman if he doesn't coerce her. Or pay her". This is a low blow, and she can see it in his eyes. A flicker of anger, soon covered up with indifference.

"Which one are you, Erso?", he asks coldly.

"Neither", she spits. She wishes she could spit _at_ him.

"Aren't you paid in lives? We all have a price", he muses. Jyn looks down, at a loss, as her hand pushes a brown strand behind her ear, without thinking. His icy eyes follow the movement, as if reminded that she is real too. They trail over her cheek, descend upon her lips.

"Again, I could just _not_ marry you, and things would be almost the same. For _me_ at least". His voice may be slightly lower, huskier, but she may be imagining it all...

 

She lets out a sound, going for a disgusted face. 

"So stubborn. You actually remind me of your father".

"Thank you", she says, hoping to rile him up.

"This was actually _no_ compliment", he retaliates, an eyebrow cocked. "Galen never knew what was good for him or his family". As if she doesn't know. Though her mother claimed the two men had been close. There's something unsavory in the way back of her mind, some memory about her parents fighting over Orson in some chosen, disturbing terms, and she is happy she cannot access it.

 

"If you do _that_ ", she says, replying to their previous subject, "I'll kill you". He laughs in her face. "Then I'll throw myself out the window". He sighs. This is a more distinct possibility.

"As I would expect. Well. I did propose. I did not plan on… defiling you". Orson Krennic seems to be more awkward about the word than the act. She picks up on that.

"It remains so, even if it becomes _legal_ ". The last word is spat with venom. For a moment he seems hurt, as if only realizing on the spot that her problem isn't a potential disgrace should people hear of her becoming his mistress. She doesn't want anything to do with him. He flinches.

 

"You don't realize how lucky you are, _girl_ ". His tone could cut through glass.

"No. Then choose another. There must be much more eligible choices". He nods. "Women who actually won't dream of throwing you out of an airlock. Or themselves". She crosses her arms around her midsection protectively. "Or… just take one of the many who are actually interested". She hears herself say it and she knows he will, too. She cringes at her own words.

 

He snorts. "So you think there are many women interested?", he asks almost conversationally. She knows better than to repeat. "Well, you're flattering me, Jyn Erso. Anyway. I'm not _taking_ anyone else". She cringes again.

"This isn't what I mean!", she protests. Her cheeks are angry red and she looks everywhere but at him.

 

"I cannot protect you if you aren't Lady Krennic". Her nose pinches but she can hear in his voice that he is serious now. She finds the strength to look at him, and actually his gaze is so too. 

"Does this have something to do with my father?", she asks. He doesn't reply. His gaze is dark, now. There is worse than him, unfortunately, that she knows.

"Nothing would happen to my family. Or friends", she states, but it's more of a question. Her eyebrows furrow in concentration. 

 

"Your parents would not stop asking about whether you were safe, too. They could have wanted to negotiate for literally anything else, but no", he says as if frustrated, and she is certain Director Krennic understands droids better than humans. Weapons, certainly. 

"You don't have children", she states, not even asking. He makes it that obvious. Krennic looks younger than he is. It surprised her at first. Such a man though should be long-married to some allied family, have fathered a son to train and take over after he dies.

He rolls his eyes and the gesture is oddly feminine. "No, obviously not". She could think there is disgust lurking low under the carefully crafted expression. In any other situation she would have the opportunity of wondering why he wants a wife, then. Even Jyn doesn't understand parenting fully. She sees it from her own, child centered point of view. She worries dearly. Her parents, separated from their only daughter, imagining just what is going on and probably much worse, must be unable to rest.

"Well?". She speaks so she doesn't crumble.

"Nothing, I am a man of my word even if you don't believe so".

She emits a doubtful hmm but doesn't reply.

"And...". He waits, expectant. "Huh, and… this would only be a façade. Not a real marriage in any… _consequent_ way". She realizes she struggles with words, too.

 

He laughs in her face, before patting his blond hair down just in case.

"Oh my, so _amusing_ ". Irony is dripping. "I want a pretty wife", he starts, leering. She tenses when he compliments her. He gives her an outrageously exaggerated, almost fake feeling once-over, his gaze scorching, and it somehow doesn't suit the character. She wonders if this is why she isn't more scared of him. "To show off. I want the universe to see you're mine. Because mine you will be. I want a _wedding night_ ", he adds, shameless. She thinks she sees his pink tongue wetting his lips for a second, and fire coils in her abdomen. She gasps, not expecting all this. "And every night after that".

She brings her hands to her burning cheeks in hope to find appeasement and fails. It cannot be simple for such a control freak to allow his deepest desires to become heard, she ponders. There is color on his face too.

 

"Are you so utterly... bored that you need to distract yourself like that? I don't understand why", she mutters. "I don't _want_ ". There is a plea in the lilt of her voice.

"Are you so afraid of enjoying it that you refuse a deal which would save many lives? Your mother would be so ashamed, Ers…". Before he is even finished, she throws herself at him, pushing him and punching his chest. She isn't sure what exactly set her off. But it is potent enough for her to forget her fear. He grips her slim wrists so easily. She struggles anyway. Yet lives are at stake there. Hers she can sacrifice, but what about others? And what about her worth, if she is using those as an excuse? She may have lost not only the battle but the whole war as she slightly relaxes in his grasp. The Director is not a boy she can manipulate and lead on, no. He is a man, a real man, whatever that means, this is no game...

 

"Don't talk about my parents ever", she whispers. Her voice breaks anyway, sounding very young. He is still holding her, but he gently massages her wrists. They will bruise. She doesn't care.

 

His gloved hand tilts her chin up and she closes her eyes. Jyn can only feel the traitorous warmth of a man who is ice cold, and smell the cologne, much too potent for a soldier. There is something else and she ponders idly if he uses some fussy hair product. Even her mother at her most elegant doesn't. But it is a relief from blurry sight, and she can pretend she doesn't feel a few tears running down.

 

_"Good girl"._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh noes, the meek T turned into a slutty E. I'm very sorry.

 

 

"On your knees, Miss Erso". The miss thing could and should be respectful, from a man who loves his protocol and titles, but he makes it sound debauched and decadent, as if he thrives on the formality. He must do, if he still calls her that after the dramatically arousing kiss he gave her. Jyn tells herself that she thought of someone else, that it is why she closed her eyes. It isn't true. If it was true, she wouldn't have licked her lips after, just to taste him again.

 

"Is this… a punishment? Sir?". Her voice is tentative, almost a whisper. _Did I do something wrong? Did someone else?_ She looks around the man's office. Even his desk is some work of art. She doesn't understand why one would go for such delusionally luxurious atmosphere. But… Maybe she should use this as an occasion to snoop through his documents - not that he seems to want to leave her alone.

 

"On your knees, _Erso_ ". He repeats, sentence almost identical but her name is a whip to hurt her with. It rolls off his tongue, easy and grim.

"No". She offers no explanation. He wouldn't believe them.

 

"I said I wouldn't defile you. I'm not… Before the wedding night. You will see the morning with your innocence intact, _mostly_. But you have to give me something to work with. Some… token of your surrender". A smug little smirk is playing over his otherwise attractive features. It suits him. 

 

"Oh, that is the kind of kneeling we are talking about, then". Her teasing is merciless and her smile small but cruel. She needs to get the upper hand. She feels she is drowning. "But. No.", she tells herself as much as she tells him.

 

"Jyn", he whines, and it kills her to hear him use that tone, begging almost all of a sudden. She stares in surprise. "Jyn, you can't leave me like that. What you did to me…". She scowls. He kissed her, not the other way round. Or he is talking of something else. "I need to be able to work, to _concentrate_ ". 

"Oh poor dear", she exclaims, bitter. Jyn hates the guilt trip almost as much as his work. She realizes it is the first time he uses her name. 'Jyn Erso' prononced all at once, _Jynerso_ , doesn't count. That new development makes her sound like a lover, not a criminal.

 

Just because of that, she shouldn't comply. Just because of that, she complies. She slowly knees in front of him, her eyes fixated on his. She doesn't know what they read in each other's gazes. He exhales slowly. He doesn't give her more, until she bends closer and kisses him there, mouthes "Director" against the clothed hardness. She is innocent, that one, but she seems to find instinctively how to destroy him. He has to retaliate.

 

"You do remind me a lot of your father"

 

Her father... would be disgusted to even consider what is happening. Jyn wants to think that whatever Krennic says, it is a lie to rile her up, nothing more. She gives a pained gasp at the deeper meaning of this anyway, at the image of her father _there_. Dark despair, darker desire. The young woman knows she should stop at once. This is not about keeping her innocence intact, as he said, because some quick ravishment would allow her to keep her illusions - delusions - of refusal. She decides she is doing it not because she wants to, but because it hurts, the idea of him finally going to one of those women who would want him enough to finish what she has started. Women who would want to get something from him, or give him pleasure, see him come above them or under their fingers. She whimpers gently, the image searing.

 

His hand is in her hair, not imposing but very much present. She does her best not to picture anyone else there, again. She finally allows herself to see what's in front of her. He is as hard as she thought, and bigger than she imagined. She shivers, looks back up at his face, which doesn't help. Almost interrogatively, she waits. He allows himself to touch his manhood through the white material. Reluctant, as if shamed. He gives in to the need then, pressing and moving his palm against the hardness, his eyelids fluttering. She takes in the movement, the expression, and she moans hatefully. He struggles with his fly, untucks himself as quickly as his gloves allow - they don't make it easy. He is leaking some clear substance. 

 

"J... Jyn…". He stutters. She made the Director of the Advanced Weapons Research stutter. In turn this makes her moan.

"I know you want to touch me, to taste me", he insists, making it about her, downplaying his vulnerability.

"You are deluding yourself, _Sir_ ", she retorts, going for a distance between them, even though she licked her lips after the kiss, and she is currently fighting a losing battle. "Did I...", she wants to ask if she offended him in some way that she cannot understand, for him to have to humiliate her so deeply.

He puffs. "Don't meddle with adult business". It cuts, and she feels very small, sent back to memories of old. She is stuck, neither moving nor talking.

 

"It hurts…", he complains, slightly tipping his hips toward her as his hand finds her hair again, not too harshly. It sounds like a last resort. She only half believes but she likes that she is hurting him, in some way. She doesn't know if she can handle finding out how he looks and sounds in passion. The thought twists her stomach into tiny knots. Pain is safer.

"You're… wet", she comments, puzzled. It wasn't meant to turn him on, but he sighs hearing this. There is so much vulnerability to him underneath the mannerisms, the cape, the taunts. Almost fragile on the moment. She closes her eyes again and gets close enough to run her lips on his cock head. The older man blurts out something that might be her name. She softly licks at his slit when a bead appears. He lets go of her hair as if on fire. Tentatively she kisses him. She hates it, of course, she only loves the power she has on this man. Old enough to be her father. A charismatic leader. She cringes internally at her thought of her father. It is neither here nor there, it is...

 

His gloved fists clench and unclench, afraid to grab at her perhaps. He isn't ready for this. He never planned to leak with every kiss on his cock, or to be kissed there, at all. Nor did he plan to bite his lips almost bloody trying and failing to stifle moans.

 

"Enough!", he exclaims roughly. "Finish this". His loins burn just saying it. Jyn looks up, so innocent. He wants to believe it is an act. He huffs, annoyed, embarrassed to tell her how he needs to be pleasured.

"Kriff's sake… Just… take it in. Clean it and then…". The words are again missing. His eyes grow huge because she obeys. She licks him, all over, his right hand grabbing his cape in a desperate attempt at distraction. He doesn't want to come like this; not before feeling her mouth around him. He has Galen Kriffing Erso's daughter on her knees for him, licking his cock, licking her lips, shining and wet with him, nothing of those help keeping calm.

 

The worst is that he doesn't even think she is trying to provoke him, not anymore. She is tasting him on her own lips, because she wants to. This is so weird and awkward and fucking exciting he gathers this must be her first blow job. His thighs tense and he bites off a groan. He's not letting go before he can compare this first with an other one… Orson wants to say something about Galen just to see her reaction, but before he can she is conscientiously inviting him in, slow and gentle and burning.

 

Jyn doesn't really know what to do. She's acting on instinct now. Unsure she means to give him so much pleasure. Still - she takes him in her mouth, laving at him and randomly sucking strong. He is so hard though so soft. She doesn't like the feel, the taste, the sound, she insists inwardly. She doesn't want to. Her body betrays her, and she hums in pleasure. It becomes complicated to convince herself that she has never wondered, that she isn't eating him alive. When she looks up to make sure he didn't hear, she finds his gaze devastatingly dark, straight on her mouth. She ponders that she would like for him to touch her head again, maybe to encourage her, or wake her up from this thrall. The Director is past those considerations. There will be no time to establish any rhythm. There is no need for him to help himself along with thoughts of glory and conquest and shooting Death Star this time. There never is with the Ersos. 

 

"Yeah, like that. Harder. Work for it. That's it Erso, don't you dare stop, don't you dare leave…". She peers up, he isn't looking at her anymore. There is some slop behind his posh Imperial pronounciation now, some harshness that might be more than passion, but this isn't what strikes her most. 

_That's it Galen, don't you dare… Everything you worked for..._ This is her mother's voice, an ancient, ancient memory, she missed her mother's voice so much but she struggles against the subconscious remembrance. _Leave then, yeah that's it, go back to your kriffing_ … She chokes around him, chokes around the memory and takes the warm flesh all the way down so there's a reason for her eyes to be brimming with tears. Krennic doesn't see any of that, just feels that he is swallowed whole and calls her name again and again and again. There is relief to knowing it is about her that he is thinking. That must be the only reason why she is responding with a soft moan, every single time.

 

He thinks he could get her to do this again before they're married, and even after. She is at the very least interested - she, too, is a natural. That realization sends him flinging off the edge, finally pulling her hair in pent up passion, pushing her down onto himself as he is vaguely relieved that she doesn't fight, doesn't try to spit him out. The Director is almost cross eyed with delight. For an instant he sees two faces superimposing and is almost unsure who is swallowing his pleasure. He exhales and feels his heart beat gloriously in his chest. Jyn - it is her - stares at him as if finding it normal to be kneeling in front of her family enemy. Her tongue is gently swiping over his slit, gathering whatever remains, making no attempt to move. His gloved hand touches to a strand of saliva and cum on her chin. He plays with it between two fingers and brings it to his mouth, tasting himself and her. Jyn is enraptured, shocked but past any disgust at the fact that the Director seems to enjoy a man's pleasure. She will not allow his previous hints to form any picture in her mind. The childhood memory is pushed to the very back of her mind already. Jyn has always been good with survival, too good maybe, certainly good enough for him to latch onto that.

 

His lip hurts where he bit it. He doesn't care that his voice is utterly wrecked.

 

"Arise, Lady Krennic"


	3. Chapter 3

 "Arise, Lady Krennic"

 

As soon as it is over, as soon as she realizes, she starts to cry.

He looks at her in puzzlement. Did he demand too much too quick? Was it that awful, that shocking? Jyn has never seemed to be the crying type. She may have learned some unsavory details about her parents and about herself, still it shouldn't cause such drama.

He hesitates a few moments before offering his hand but she stands unassisted, wiping her mouth with her sleeve as if he was poison and she hadn't been devouring him a minute before. She won't meet his gaze. It humiliates him in some way, the man used to admiration, starry-eyed petty officers dreaming themselves lofty and wearing the cape. He doesn't even give in to temptation. Mostly. This humiliates him too. "None of that", he groans low. "None of that now".

"I didn't hurt you", he states. Once again it should be a question if he wasn't so horribly arrogant. She grimaces. He may not have hurt her physically, but what they did has destroyed a part of herself. _Lady Krennic_. No first name, and not her surname. This doesn't help. 

 

Krennic is almost angry, fights his own temper. He knows that realistically, it is a lot for anyone, even for a warrior like Jyn. 

"Sit down. If you so desire", he suggests, gesturing to a chair in front of his desk. She gracelessly complies, still not looking at him.

"Jyn", he says. No reaction.

" _Jyn_ ". It is very different from his tone earlier when she was pleasing him, but the hinted threat and the obsessive interest go straight to her core. 

She rubs at her forehead as if a head ache was coming. She remembers her mother had them after spats with her father. The implicit comparison is unwanted.

"You just wanted to totally humiliate me", she attacks, knowing all too well it is an endless, useless, discussion.

"I didn't want to _totally humiliate you_ ", he sighs. He is toying with his cape again. She inwardly hates and loves it. He fascinates her, and she can't deny that. The man she hardly had any memory from, but that lived and endured through her parents' talks and fights, now in front of her, real and sadly more human than expected. 

"Oh. Just a little, then". He doesn't reply. He doesn't deny. Of course he wanted to take her down a peg or two or three. He also wanted release after kissing her and, hell, feeling her kiss back. She can almost understand all of that, though she wouldn't have a day before.

 

He suddenly feels the need to move, and starts pacing around the desk. She considers that she has saved whoever could be saved. She, herself, couldn't be saved. So be it. This is a somber thought, but even more sobering is the distinct possibility that she would have given in without endangered loved ones, or even with loved ones he wouldn't allow her to save. This tastes bitter in her mouth as he should have.

She peers up toward him for an instant. It is interesting that she was - almost - shameless before. Did it even really happen? She can't imagine taking any man in her mouth, certainly not an Imperial official. Nor can she picture the Director moaning and begging for a young girl's attentions. She feels disheveled but he looks perfect, as he always does, as if nothing worth mentioning took place. The gentlemanly façade is back on. That person in front of her never would… Yet he is ill at ease too so it must have happened.

 

"Yes. Well. I am going to summon some troopers, there is no reason for you to remain here". He doesn't fully avoid her eyes, but she still thinks he is kicking her out and it hurts. He had enough already. Jyn decides he must have had _better_. Hatred is strength, it lets her study his face at last, biting into her lower lip as if it would hurt him instead. 

She stands as he rings for his men. She doesn't have much time alone with him anymore.

"I _will_ kill you, Director, one day soon. You know that". She, too, can state things that should be questions.

He stares at her, finally. It is almost a relief. It burns, rushing through her veins. Adrenaline. Hatred. Power. And…

"Oh, that pent-up passion of youth. I do look forward to our wedding night, my lady". His sentence deflects the threat, but this time he doesn't laugh at her. He picks up her small hand, the leather glove warm around her skin, before bringing it up. He bends slightly and kisses it, his eyes burning ice. His mouth is so soft, warm enough to make her shiver.

She all but gasps, startled by her own sensations. "I can't", she whispers to herself. _I can't stand it, I can't stand him, I can't fuck him, I can't kill him_. She is convinced the two last ones, at least, won't even work physically. She will tremble, she will tense, she won't be able to aim, nor to accept him inside her, yet both of those things are part of the plan somehow. She almost shrieks as the door opens.

 

Troopers surround her, an escort and an arrest both for a prisoner princess. She realizes he hasn't let go of her hand. He apparently doesn't mind his underlings seeing him kissing some rebel's hand, giving her bedroom eyes that she tries so, so hard not to picture above her as she, too, will wear full on white and he will push her down onto the - their - bed… Jyn tugs her hand out of his as a flicker of some emotion wrecks her. 

"Never", she mouthes just for him. He doesn't know if he wants her more when she rejects him, or when she searches for the taste of his cock. It will be difficult to work in the following days. The Director has no desire to resort to touching himself and is surprised at how much he doesn't want a random tryst now that he has had a glimpse of her.

 

"We shall see", Orson muses, and she is brought away. He could tell her that she is going back on her word and that her family and friends will suffer his wrath. Or he could tell her he doesn't believe she will refuse or resist. But Orson Krennic is a clever man. He will let her stew in her own juice until the wedding, give her time to fear her loved ones' death, her debasement on their first night, or both. It will be so beautiful.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of trash and slash and angst. Sorry. Lots of Galen/Orson in this. But worry not, Jyn has her turn.
> 
> and yes, I made an Earth ref...

 

 

 "You?"

Jyn Erso doesn't expect the Director Krennic to visit her in what is a glorified prison cell. There's a fresher, even. _Water_. It made her laugh when the troopers found useful to give her a tour of her own jail. 

This is not a torture chamber or an interrogation room, not even a regular cell. For sure. She knows what the Empire has in store for its arch enemies. The Erso daughter? She is nothing. Krennic said so, openly. And he hinted at it when he made her kneel for him anyway. You do not use a political prisoner so - though more because it is a conflicting message to send, than because of any attempt at morality. Jyn hates herself for giving in. She didn't even get forced. Now, in the silent, not quite efficiently aerated area, Jyn realizes how wrong she had behaved. She cannot do anything about it. It is forever the fact that Jyn Erso enjoyed sucking off Director Krennic.

 

"It makes you feel better?", she asked the stormtroopers, bitter, as they pointed to the refresher. They didn't reply, maybe not understanding. Her anger, rather, was directed at Krennic the man who would lock up his own frigging _fiancée_. She laughs outloud at the thought, at everything. Nothing makes sense. Will he keep her under lock and key in his bedrooms, or will he suddenly set her free once he takes her maidenhead and her maiden name. _Lady Krennic._ Not officially yet. 

 

A lady has some rights, she thinks.

But not against her husband, she realizes.

 

Which means she will have just as much as he decides.

 

Stuck.

 

Her thoughts coil and uncoil, a sick animal chasing its tail, as her body nestles in the slightly too comfortable bed. She sighs, hating that she has this. She refuses to move when the door opens though the sound startles her. There is, always, an instant when the daughter of Galen Erso allows herself to forget that she is safe in quite a somber, depressing way. They are not coming to torture her. They are not coming, either, her friends. No one is coming to get Jyn Erso except a handsome, charming man she hates.

 

White, so bright it hurts her eyes as a prisoner who finally sees the sun again, appears in her field of vision. She despises how her mind compares him to that before she remembers a sun can burn, kill or explode, and that's what he is, with his golden silver hair and his damned cape and his hot lips. _No_. Staying in bed has no appeal suddenly. She wanted to offend whoever that was with her laziness, but she doesn't wish to appear weak or worse, wanton.

She sits quick as she can, then straighter up. The blanket has fallen from her body, and it is a relief that she is dressed, although in clothes that aren't either hers, or _her_. This unsettles her and she looks down, almost expecting the traitorous garment to ride up. It does. She scowls as if it was on purpose and tugs it down. His eyes have followed her every move, hungry to see, to stare, to stalk. When her gaze snaps back up at his though he pretends he hasn't been looking.

 

One option, the Director doesn't want to be seen as a mere man, with weaknesses even - especially - the most powerful have. Another, more frightening, possibility, is that he has regrets. He isn't there to fuck her, but worse to not engage, to back down, to come back on his word, well, as she did.

 

He misinterprets her frown.

"You aren't a prisoner here, so quit this ungainly sulking".

Immediately she can't believe she was horrified at the idea of losing this match. Everything is better, literally everything. As if on cue, he goes on.

"I have been speaking to your father". Her heart constricts. "As was to be expected, he is playing hero and considers that you should save your dignity from my clutches". He rolls his eyes and maybe he is actually repeating Galen's words. She would treasure those. 

"So I am asking. Are you marrying me, Jyn?".

This is the closest she may have from a real proposal from him, and if she accepts, from anyone, ever. She notices he didn't ask if she wants to, but if she will. Jyn Erso cannot keep eye contact but she only figures that her hand is fisting her skirt's material, clenching and unclenching around it, when his glacier eyes trail down to her thighs again.

 

"Have you really been talking to my father?", she asks suddenly, almost begging. "Is he well? Did you…".

He physically recoils. "No! I didn't torture your father, if that's what you are asking". She cringes at the word. He only detests the assumption of him hurting Galen, not the act per se, but she knew that. She does file away the information, to use against him again and again. "I would never hurt him, I love him". She fists at the skirt with all her hatred and rage, thinking too late that her nails could tear it to pieces, since he is off limits. He has fire, too ambitious, too volatile, too passionate. Somehow he is like her, only her opposite, the dark to her light though he's the one wearing white. If she marries him, they'll match, she thinks madly. Jyn closes her eyes but in the dark it is even harder not to picture it. "Galen is my friend", he adds, maybe wanting to come back on his first declaration.

_I love him_.

"Some way to treat a friend", she spits. Her mind reels still at the other sentence. "If it is so…". If he is your friend, if you love _him_. "Let me go".

 

"He is the only one to blame for all this. Lucky that I am handling this, and not anyone else. He betrayed me - betrayed the Empire, your father". She growls and it is more than she can bear.

_I love him. He betrayed me_. Basically, he told her the whole story he doesn't even tell himself.

 

"You will meet them all, at the wedding. Your father, he'll be fine though quite red eyed". Somber joy in his voice. Galen would obviously lose two people that day. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to look at her in the eye, lest she should read jealousy there. Perhaps her father would be as lost to her as if he was dead. She cannot breathe.

 

"I don't want one more word about my father. What the fuck! What does my mother say? Is that why he doesn't want me to marry you?". She sounds hysterical, childish and lost and yes, jealous. Accusing her father of reciprocating whatever the Director is claiming exists. Of being ready to die for it. She cannot stop. She wants to stand up, jump from her bed and get rid of that awful energy, that fog surrounding her, but it is too late, he is too close to the bed for her to move.

"Jyn, calm down", he says, not unkindly, gesturing pacifically with his gloved hand. "Why do you care about these old stories? You weren't even born". He still plays upon the ambiguity, the kind of fidelity between engineer students, to the death, and the possibility of more. Of longer.

 

"This is part of his punishment", she says, half airy half hysterical, looking up at him. "Of course. You don't want m...". Oh fuck. What did she almost say. No. "You don't want to marry me, you want to fuck him up". In more than one way, she thinks and fears. Jyn cannot imagine loving someone and have them marry your kriffing kid. In this case, yes, it is even more devastating to have the child consent, to not conduct this as a rape. She is in horrible pain for herself, for her father, for her mother. Orson is watching at something invisible, half closed eyes, almost translucent eyelashes veiling his usually piercing gaze. He is considering the truth in this, because he never confessed this even to himself, not in those terms.

 

Galen is good with figures, numbers, but Jyn is great at reading people. She actually managed to turn whatever he shared to taunt her into a powerful weapon, devastating as an invisible, mental, moral Death star to turn him into stardust. He considers the words he told her, phrases he would never have uttered even in the privacy of his mind. It makes him sound like a lover scorned. He hates it.

 

"Your father is nothing to me, girl". Like she is nothing, he implies, or at least she hears it. She would bet her life on him lying about her father. As for herself, she is different enough that he cannot search for a younger, unattached, virginal version of Galen in her. Though she still is the closest he can get to that, female at that - his men may joke about him fucking Jyn, which they must imagine he does, it doesn't debase and disgrace him on remotely the same level as doing the same to Galen. The Director catching feelings - ha! - for Jyn would make him weak, ridiculous perhaps. But feelings for a male? He would never hear the end of it - debauched, decadent, degenerate. Not a man. 

 

"I can't", she says again, as if she is really unable, more than unwilling.

He doesn't say anything this time, letting her continue.

"They'll all be looking me, watching… Imagining…". She sounds hysterical again, as her mind pictures his friends, older and Imperial and laughing chin up at the idea of Krennic having his way with the Erso kid now that he has signed some paperwork and spent on some ceremony, stilted first and then indulgent.

"Isn't it like that at every wedding?", he asks rhetorically. She cringes. She was hoping to be wrong, or that he wasn't considering this part of his norm. Why is she surprised that a man who doesn't value life wouldn't value dignity in anyone else but himself? He doesn't seem to dislike that she is shocked. Perhaps he doesn't notice.

"Would you… Consider". She knows what he means. Jyn searches his face for clues. A trap, something to go to bed quick, or to mock her should she accept. She finds only open desire and a topping of concern. For her? No, she decides, for how the wedding night would go if she collapses.

 

She puffs and grimaces.

"You're waiting then…", he teases. "You're refusing me because you are keeping pure, for me". It sounds ridiculous in his mouth. 

"It will not be said that Orson Krennic forced a woman who wasn't his". Jyn almost nods in agreement until she hears the end of the sentence and pales. He actually takes a step back, though, showing her physically what she doesn't believe outloud, and not understanding that she is now hearing the hint, Orson Krennic has no problem with people knowing that he would force a woman who is his. He sees her fear then, but misses the real reason.

 

"I understand you are afraid. It does hurt, that first time, I am not going to lie…". She laughs, because lies are his domain, and because really? Does he think he has to replace her mother in more than her father's… affections?

"And how would you know?", she snarks. She is not that innocent, that she thinks it is the same for a man and a woman. He is quiet, strangely, his eyes not quite keeping with hers, and she understands. She silently mouths a "Oh".

What he is confessing to, goodness. It breaks something inside her, but not necessarily in a bad way. Her face is bone white except where her cheeks are burning, painful as a sunburn. It doesn't say much and still it gives her much too precise an image of her father and her fiancé. She hums behind her palm. For some reason it disturbs her that Krennic was not - always - the one in control. She cannot imagine him relinquishing this. Not without profound feelings, and this isn't for him to have them, no. Krennic wanting to give this to someone. 

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck", she mutters under her breath.

"Language", he tuts, but it is weak. His face is ashen too, despite his blood high on his cheeks. She imagines they look the same.

 

"Why do you tell me that", she breathes. She stands up now, uncaring that she has to brush past him. She isn't as afraid of him and his contact after hearing this confession. If she doesn't even tread toward thinking of her father in any of this, if she only, vaguely considers manly hands on Krennic's too pretty hair… The image isn't fully displeasing.

 

He doesn't reply. 

"Why?", she insists, voice gaining strength where he is losing his.

"Now you know", he finally offers, his gaze still vague. Broken almost. Yes, she does. She does know that he cannot want her for what she is. Some tiny backwater planet came up with a devastatingly upsetting saying, man is made for war, woman is made for the warrior's repose, and the rest is madness. Madness indeed, because she cannot even be this to him. But it raises many more questions than it answers and she fears every single discovery even though he is the one hurt and humiliated.

 

 

"It disgusts you". _I disgust you._

Jyn pauses and actually hesitates. She feels rage, anger, even a tad of curiosity, but disgust? She cannot find it. 

"No. I pity you", she says anyway, to hurt him, and it is the worst a nameless rebel girl could tell the Director of the Advanced Weapons Research.

His expression shifts from almost hopeful as she denies, to cold and hateful. He snarls.  Yet even this, Jyn doesn't mean as nastily as he imagines.

 

"I will kill everyone you would find interesting to tell", he states as if he was discussing getting another caf. She laughs, chin up, not necessarily unbelieving but certainly sure she is keeping that image of manly lips against his, manly hands grabbing his hips, to herself. It is awful but also beautiful, this gift he gave her.

It is wrong, what she wants to do even more than before, and how she wonders about his face _then_. She cannot ever find out. If there is a holorecord of that moment, she imagines Orson happily blowing up a planet to destroy it and then some. Of course, screwing the daughter when you like the father cannot be wholesome, even for the likes of Krennic. But. There is some poetic justice to taking the daughter's blood, in this case. If he has been the first, she wants to be the last. She grabs his chin for her lips to devour his as he did to her before, and she brings him down, down, down.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tarkin saves the (wedding) day. Not.
> 
>  
> 
> "giddy unpleasant smile" ;)

"Where is my mother", she mumbles, face half turned toward the man who is now her husband. Her eyes have been trying to locate Lyra since the beginning of the ceremony, to no avail. Only now, sitting down at a much too luxurious table with him, can she ask without interrupting or anyone else hearing.

 

 

Orson Krennic had noticed that she was looking for her, of course, but it didn't really matter and Lyra mattered even less. If that was possible. But now that she asks, he sees no reason to abstain.

 

"Your dear father informed us that your mother is indisposed". He cares much more about his lack of food in front of him. She would have rolled her eyes at the royal we, if not for the mounting panic. He reads it in her eyes.

"Are you going to suspect me of torturing your whole kin for the duration of our marriage, long may it last?", he asks, very clearly mocking. He wears white, as he always does, and she knows that if Lyra had been there she would have been unable to abstain from saying only the bride should wear it. Certainly no other woman. She swallows silently. She wants to shame him so very very much.

"Probably" is all she dares. He is impatient for something - dinner? - and a hand, gloved in white, pats down and neatens a solar strand that was never out of shape to begin with. He is perfect. They will have to dance, she thinks, and she can just see it. His dress uniform, his -made up?- medals, his graceful moves, his cape like a trail… He is just perfect, where she so painfully isn't. 

 

_No, he is ridiculous. Not perfect._

 

But she doesn't believe it. Anyone else would be laughing stock, not Orson.

 

Her gown is visibly expensive, but also simple, though she wouldn't complain of this, if not for the comparison with him. The Director Krennic is the one attracting gazes of all kinds tonight, and always. That garment was easy to put on, though she had needed that prissy droid. It had left soon after curling her hair and adorning her with a lacy veil from some planet which name she forgot after tuning out when the robot started ranting about the price of traditional lace. She looked at herself in the mirror, white on white, a symbol for death, purity or both. Certainly Krennic's white couldn't be purity, as much as his fair hair and complexion claimed. The droid insisted she wouldn't need help getting undressed. She doesn't like remembring it. _Easy to put on, easy to take off,_ she tells herself, and trembles. **** ~~~~

 

"Alright. Alright then. It is fine with me", he says, still distracted. If his wife needs to see him as a monster, so be it. It doesn't change much for him, maybe makes the wedding night a tad more complicated, and he wouldn't be Krennic if he disliked that. He doesn't notice her nerves. He seems to be spotting an object of attention on the other side of the very large hall, decorated with Imperial symbols. His eyes narrow. "It will be fun". She frowns, she doesn't know if he is still speaking of her suspecting him of mistreating her relatives. Her angst and hatred may well be his idea of a word she has never heard him use before. And they have actually been talking. He visited her several times, regularly though not like clockwork. She never knew if she was going to see a human on a certain day, and it had to please him that she came, almost, to be impatient. He never forced himself on her, actually keeping his word. He wouldn't take a woman who wasn't his. She was now… Her stomach cramps up at the thought, at the memory of signing that fated document - "Write Jyn Krennic", he insisted, malevolent glee in his voice as if he had adopted away his enemy's child. She had complied because it made her feel like she wasn't the one doing this. _Jyn Krennic_ , he muttered to himself. Jyn Krennic, daughter of Galen Walton and Lyra Erso. Her evil twin.

 

But there is comfort in the fact that he kept his promise. She also struggled with the fact that he never tried suggesting it again, as if he had lost patience, or interest for the game. For her… If he was waiting for her to throw herself at him, he would remain disappointed. Jyn had been able to keep control of her desires, if only because it was a quick wedding… Jyn grimaces to herself, conscious that she would not have been able to forever refrain.

 

"Aaaah! There he is!". She startles at the sound of her husband's voice, so enthusiastic and yet, with an edge, as when she signed herself off to him. She follows his gaze and she gasps, standing up. 

"Dad!", she exclaims, not caring if she sounds like a little kid. Hopefully it will drive Orson off and he won't touch her. 

Galen looks at her first, eyes attracted by her movement. She sees him take the heavy make up in, the dark red lipstick, the much too noticeable black… thing… the droid insisted on using on her eyes. "No, no touching! No!", it had scolded when she started to tamper with it. Then his eyes trail down to her goddamned cleavage and he so clearly disapproves it hurts to see his lip curl. As if she had a choice, a say. As if women disgust him when they look like women. He, of all people, should get it...

 

Krennic stands up too and Jyn is surprised he would show any respect. Of course he doesn't.

"Father…", he greets Galen, who flinches. His tone is low, husky, not at all the voice you use with your genitor. "You look quite handsome tonight". His hands find his waist, too naturally, much too naturally. Galen recoils when Orson gets into his personal space, their cheeks almost grazing before he reacts. Jyn only then notices her father's attire, more sophisticated than she has ever seen him wear, even on his own wedding holo. Interesting.

"I chose well", Krennic compliments - himself almost as much as Galen. Typical. Jyn ponders that neither her father nor her had a choice tonight. 

"See, Jyn. You were worried. He is fine. Even put on some weight, no?". He goes for a pinch and Galen averts his eyes, red eyed as Orson had predicted. "So, you asked about your mother. She really and truly is unwell. Migraine, right, Galen? You told me. She cries, throws up _everywhere_. Terrible things, those. It's not a pretty picture, but I have Galen at my table so all is good". 

 

He sits down and orders them to follow suit with his eyes. As they do, father and daughter avoid looking at each other and Jyn just now realizes that her husband hasn't complimented her appearance. Her second thought is grimmer; I chose well could refer to choice of clothing, or of companion. Suddenly the idea of sitting at a family table - there are four chairs, Lyra's will remain visibly unused, and Orson has decided eating with his wife and his lover is fun - is more than she can handle. 

 

"Flunky!", Director Krennic yells, raising up a hand to attract some unfortunate waiter's attention. "Do I need to throw a fit at my own wedding, heh, Galen?". He laughs, a bit sour, and runs that same hand through the older man's hair, caressing at first then pulling hard when Galen tries to escape. Jyn gapes openly in horror, bothered by both and reminded of some of her own gestures with the Director. She averts her eyes when she figures out that he might not even be doing that for show, cheeks burning.

 

The waiter cannot escape this table. He feels he arrived at the worst moment and ignores everything but the man obviously in charge. He is thankful not to get tripped as he serves the delicacies, running back to his life as quick as he can, away from this, away from them, committing never to envy the wealthy again.

 

"Grand Moff…", Galen mutters. His first words. Not congrats, of course not. But not _Get me out of here_ either though his eyes plead for help, any help, even a blaster shot through his broken heart. The young couple searches for Tarkin and indeed, he is staring from afar, disapproval written all across his stark features. Galen hopes he is only thinking that Director Krennic is mistreating his star engineer, but Jyn madly wishes for him to know what kind of man the Empire is nurturing. She sends him a tragic look he totally ignores. She remembers in their world she doesn't exist. He isn't rejoicing, he doesn't _care_. 

 

"He's a kriffing joke", Orson replies at last, but he reluctantly lets go of the hair.

 

"I suggest you both enjoy this dish. Alderaan specialty. There may be a shortage soon". He stabs at the orange-yellow thing with his fork. Jyn is perplexed, but Galen's lip is bitten hard. As if he was understanding it quite clearly. As if he was foreseeing the Director actually taking a bite, and redirecting the fork to his mouth.

"Your father always preferred dessert". She didn't know this. "Or what came after".

She shakes her head. "He doesn't smoke".

Galen's head remains low. "Not anymore. But I'm not talking of cigarras". Before she has time to understand and process, he addresses Galen.

"Open", he says, in such a simple and natural way Jyn is certain this has already happened. "We work so well together, you deserve this". Jyn doesn't understand what her husband is talking about. "Open for me, sweetness", he repeats, honeyed words with an edge. It all goes to Jyn's head and to her abdomen, leaving her dizzy and troubled, even - especially - because it isn't directed to her and she can observe Orson flirting.

Galen is nothing if not resilient, and whether he likes it or not there is strength in Lyra, or she wouldn't have caused conflict between them for decades. But Jyn is strong in a way that almost frightens him, in a way he has to squash, though he knows she doesn't have her parents' resistance on the long run. Galen's second Stardust, the one he created with Krennic, will endure whatever happens. There is no weakness lurking behind the surface, not like this almost invisible moral exhaustion he can detect in Jyn. Few would. But he is a master tactician and interrogator. People like her don't break from beatings. She licks her lips as unconspicuously as she can, shiny pink only visible for a second, and she gives him a quick glance, uncomfortable in the silence.

Galen looks at nothing and complies, to spare himself, and her, more of the same. _The worst is that it tastes good._

 

"You know Jyn", the Director suddenly says. He has appropriated Galen's plate since he has no appetite and probably thinks he can also appropriate his parental role. "You can learn from the way a man treats his underlings". This is true. Her mother always said so. It is shocking that Orson actually thinks he treated that waiter correctly, not to mention Galen. Or Jyn. Or anyone. "His… possessions". It seems synonymous for him. The girl cringes. _I cannot be marrying this_. "I didn't have to let him out". She understands after a few heart beats that he means her father. _My Galen_. Prized possession. Does she imagine this or is any of it a memory?

"Let him out of what?", she asks. He snorts as if they were joking.

"Don't worry, your mother will be fine. Migraines can be caused by heavy stress and anguish". He says this as if it is her normal state somehow, now that he is in her life, forbidding her freedom, fucking her husband, marrying her daughter, hopefully fathering her grandchildren. "She will feel better once her darling is sent back there with her". Jyn ignores the sweet venom. 

"Back there where? Are my parents in prison? On my wedding day?". She expected something - slightly- better.

"Depends on the wedding night", he says bluntly. He is rarely the blunt kind. She assumes he is punishing someone here.

"Stardust we are fine!". Galen's exclamation is tight, tense, pleading for her not to try to bargain with the monster. "We absolutely do not need anything".

"Oh hush dear…". Director Krennic smiles to his lover, winks, and it is deadly. " 'Stardust' knows well that it is a lie". 

 

This whole exchange wrecks her so much she dares to try to catch the Grand Moff's eyes to no avail. She wishes at least she didn't know her husband's nicknames for her father. Though hearing him call Galen father wasn't better, not at all. Orson is drunk, drunk on barely any liquor, just on what is going on, power, hatred, suffering even his own, but above all triumph. He laughs at his own jokes and good words, smiles to everyone, even nods to Tarkin once during the meal. She married the most handsome and the worst of them all.

 

For the third time, the Director pours some luxurious drink to Galen, and pressures him into drinking, just with a gaze that turns into a glare if neglected.

"Corellian whisky", he just says, as an explanation for not wasting perhaps. He drinks almost as much, but not enough that he'll fall asleep on the way to her bedroom. He pretends to get the bottle closer to her glass then dramatically pauses. "None for the children, maybe blue milk", he adds, and bursts out laughing. He changes his mind through the meal though, and decides she should have some wine to celebrate. He uses that word. She refuses just for that, until his gaze makes it very clear she better drink.

"Your daughter is not drinking", he complains. "I do not wish for... a fight. Later". Jyn innocently imagines him reproaching her with not having fun, then her father's paling cheeks inform her of what exactly is meant.

"Use your troopers then", she rages, unsure what she means by that, and he chooses the least unmanning explanation. "No other than me is allowed to lay a hand on the Lady Krennic. Drink now", he says darkly. She thinks it might be best. But her body still protests, her hand clumsily dropping the glass on the table.

"Shit!", she exclaims, surprised at herself. The wine, red and deep, has stained the table cloth, no longer immaculate, but also her skirt - stain growing as if she had been stabbed. She pushes her chair back and Krennic gestures for a waiter again. The same young boy appears, terror in his eyes, and is instructed to salvage the wedding gown. He wishes he could save the bride, as he rubs at the stain with various products.

"These gowns are easy to wash", the Director comments, disregarding the waiter's hard work. "They're made that way. They are bound to be stained red, after all". Jyn feels nauseatingly queasy though his gaze is trained on Galen. "I even have that theory… Red is most visible on white". 

"Oh, is that why you chose that color", Jyn dares. Slowly he watches her instead.

"No... But it is a perk". She has never actually seen him bloodied. It may be a lie. She wants it to be. She also wants it to be the last image she has of him, red growing, red on white. "There used to be this tradition of safekeeping the gown, after. I have seen my mother's, my grandmother's… It was a proof of their… honor. The more the better". The skirt is white again, but Jyn's cheeks are red now. She wishes she had a glass to bury herself into as she fights a need to dry heave.

His eyes wander over Galen's form. She refuses to think, what does he have that I don't. "Fetching. Really". His tongue darts out only for an instant, wetting his lips, too red for a man. He sighs in longing. "Cute like a girl when he cries". But her father isn't crying just yet, and Krennic never seemed to find girls cute. Jyn's mouth twists and settles into a straight line.

 

 

 

 

"Maybe, though… You simply should have worn the Imperial uniform. Nothing is more flattering". Jyn's eyes narrow.

"You don't believe your father wore this, little Jyn? You don't have any memory? Think well…". His voice is gentle, tender, the refined cruelty more in line with how he addresses his prisoners before it gets bloody. She is doomed. Whether she remembers or not. Because if she doesn't, then she will think she suppressed them, and if she does have access to them, who is to say she didn't make them up? But deep down, the young girl thinks she has at least one memory of this, and that it predates Krennic's jab. Living room. Somewhere. Krennic is there, younger, glorious. Mom sulks. Dad… Is neither here nor there, trying to… Comfort? Compromise. Oh, Galen. She calls for him and he approaches, he bends. Annoyed eyes, forced cold smile, Imperial. In the memory, Krennic has the very same giddy unpleasant smile as at the wedding table.

 

"Impossible". 

Krennic bites. "Do you think your parents always were rebels? No, Lyra especially was not only a scientist but a realist. She would never have allowed him an impractical opinion, or one at all. They clung to their sacrosanct neutrality as long as they could, until she decided…". _To take him from me_. "Well. _I_ remained constant". He isn't speaking of politics. Jyn's breath is shaky, awkward. Maybe she would rather not breathe at all. 

Despite enmity, the men share an intimacy, their fingers brushing without meaning to, as an echo of things that had been. When it happens her father tenses, in anger and something else. She hopes for hatred, but it may be guilt, or worse.

Suddenly his hand grabs at Galen's hair again - he loves the hair, long and silky - and drags him closer, wanting him to rest his head against his shoulder. This is too much. Galen can take the hatred and the humiliation, not this half fake tenderness, certainly not after the images the younger man imprinted in his mind. He puts up a struggle and oddly, Krennic lets go.

 

"Speaking of unpleasant. Maybe you should wrap a pastry for what's her face", he suggests as if nothing had happened. Galen is surprised at the pettiness, though it isn't unfamiliar, and Jyn wonders if Krennic has more modest origins than he would ever want people finding out, if he knows about the concept. She cannot imagine Imperials doing so, and yet the immaculate gloves pick up something half bitten into and expertly roll up the biscuit in a napkin. _Blue milk. For the kid._

"She's used to my leftovers. Stealing what's mine - well, I don't want it, that's the concept of a _leftover_ ". He almost yells the last word. His eyes are a storm, terrible and beautiful, and fixate on Galen. "You give it to my mother in law. I'll send someone to make sure you give it to her". He's not really making sense, much too emotional and yes, almost drunk on alcohol now.

 

"What if I _choose_ to…". Galen speaks up. The wrong thing.

"You chose long ago", he snarks back. "And I told you, long ago. Whatever you do to me I'll do to you tenfold. Whatever you won't give me, I'll take somewhere else". At the time he probably did not mean it to be Jyn. Both Galen and Jyn cling to that.

"I never wanted to hurt you", Galen grimaces. It sounds like some pitiful excuse while separating. Jyn tells herself she cannot he marrying a man who is in it to get revenge on her mother for stealing his lover and on her father for choosing her mother. This cannot be.

 

_I love him. He betrayed me._

 

"You kriffed up my life and my project… So here you are, Erso". Before any of them can react, Orson's attentions turn to Jyn and he grabs her, all but drags her to sit onto his lap. She yelps more in fright than pain, feeling unbearably light. Then comes embarrassment because her reaction makes it even more noticeable. Now it is as in her nightmare: all the Imperials are staring right at her, and her veil is thrown back so they can see her red cheeks and her cleavage and the way she is breathing, quite erratic. "Here you are Erso" he tells her this time, lower and seductive. He is probably not going to take her in front of the whole Empire. This is not their way, she knows. Their way is to be well-above needs, or keep your many deviances, love the worst one, behind closed doors. The Director doesn't fully comply, but he cannot flaunt either. His hands run over her arms, her shoulders, staying away from anything too intimate. Even so. Several officers have stood up and are slowly moving closer. They share her husband's idea of fun. She is afraid of what she reads in their eyes, but she knows they will not touch her. No other than Krennic is worthy of a lady Krennic. Though she cannot read their insignia, she recognizes Krennic has rank on them. He feels her shudder.

 

 

"You do know what goes on between man and wife, I presume". There is some interrogative lilt to his tone and he keeps his voice low. "She told you already?". Jyn would think she reads very slight concern in the Director's pale blue eyes, but she doubts it is not faked. "Anyway women live through it. It is what it is. I hope this at least she could explain". _Definitely no concern. Just hatred._

 

"We are talking about my daughter here". The sadness is unmistakable in the father's voice, and it gives pause to both Jyn and Krennic. Not fear, not concern, which would terrify the girl, but an utter, devastating pain.

 

"Yes", he triumphs. "Isn't life beautiful? Who could ima…".

Suddenly they all freeze - even her husband. The Grand Moff himself has stood, and is leisurely making his way toward the so called Family Table. Galen half stands, in respect or horror. Jyn herself attempts to, three times actually, before she gives up as the Director won't let her go, his grip iron on her slim wrists.

 

"Congratulations, Director Krennic", he exclaims for all to hear. There is not one ounce of humanity in his voice. It then lowers. "You are drunk, go home. You are a disgrace, a _shame_ to the Emperor". He encompasses the Director, the bride and the strange, disheveled father in one disgusted glare. "Why do you think he is not there". Krennic shudders in repressed something. The old man makes to leave, then hesitates. Stops. Turns to Krennic again. "I don't know why I bother, but as a husband it is your privilege and duty to teach her how to behave, since her father obviously didn't". Her eyes widen and tears threaten to run. But no. She has a dry sob and nothing else. No more tears to spare, not even enough blood to flush. Just bone deep exhaustion. Of course this is what they all think, that she fucked or sucked him so good he just had to marry her. That she pursued him. Even rebel scum liking him because he was irresistible. He probably bragged so. She doesn't look toward Galen, certain he is sniffling. Even her husband is at a loss. How can the Grand Moff not see the scene for what it is? Of course he does. He is a master at analyzing tactics, he just doesn't care… "My lord father used to say one isn't really a man before…". The Moff himself hesitates and this is the scariest. She wonders what the man said that he cannot repeat, and who raised such a barely human son. "Before an enemy's blood and a maiden's". He exhales a bit too loud. She is just barely enough of a woman for the officers to mind their tongue around her, she ponders, or it is this generation. "You went easy on the first Erso, don't spoil that one". Jyn wonders if she is the enemy or the maiden in Tarkin Senior's story. _I am both._ "I will never understand your choices, Krennic, even you could do better". The Moff's expressionless eyes trail over to Galen and the blushing bride understands he knows. It doesn't make her feel better, but she is past feeling worse. Or so she thinks.

 

With this, he leaves not only the area, but the room altogether, and though his presence was forbidding, the party never picks up quite the same after. 

"The Grand Moff, then", she murmurs. "I suppose my mother, too". The whole Galaxy. It dawns on her, as if someone turned on a blinding light straight into her eyes. She ragingly brings the cup to her lips, the alcohol burning enough to explain red eyes and brimming tears. It has the taste of anger, of rightful wrath, it is what warriors drink as they mutter God, grant me revenge. Only too late does she realize it was Krennic's, but… It is fine. She has swallowed more of him, after all. If there is some ritual about drinking from the groom's glass, it is not mentioned by anyone and doesn't feel like it.

"I suppose I should dance with my bride", Krennic finally says. His voice is oddly awkward. "Well, Galen, if you'll excuse us…". There's a flicker of something on his face. Shame, she realizes. She didn't think he was able to experience it. She remains on his lap but he doesn't touch her except to help her up. When she allows herself a glance at the perfect silhouette, she decides it is the liquor causing that wounded feeling low in her stomach. Jyn steels herself into not noticing the silent apologies in his eyes in case she would give in.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here be gunplay. Bear in mind, no one in this fic is entirely normal (war would do that), and there is no CHARACTER DEATH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Now take off your lipstick", he orders, not even trying to sound authoritative because he doesn't expect disobedience ever. He had avoided her eyes during the dance, and behaved almost humanely for the rest of the night, but it was now near dawn, and they were in his apartment, her new home, with not even a droid on.

"Why?", she asks, tense. Does he mean to kiss her and not sully his face? She imagines him with a scarlet mouth. She doesn't think anyone would like it, not her, not him, not her father - the last idea is immediately discarded.

"Take off your make up", he repeats, actually rummaging through a small table for a tissue to pass. She takes it but she pauses. It is not exactly the same demand.

"Why? So I look younger?". _Defensive much_. He seems interrogative, not hurt. 

"What? ...No…?". 

She had assumed he preferred her sophisticated. Her cleavage certainly wasn't… girlish. But it isn't so and he isn't into the young thing either. The man, forever a mystery.

She didn't think not obeying would get her a reply but it does.

"I can see your face better without all that". Almost moody. He doesn't like expressing this. Interesting. Krennic would much more easily confess to liking her looking like a harlot, or even like a teenager. She takes the half compliment that must be hiding somewhere and pushes back the idea that most people he is interested in do _not_ wear make up, including… Yeah. No.

 

He seems to remember something, and heads for his office. She follows, afraid to remain alone for some reason. Nothing can happen to Lady Krennic, nothing else than Director Krennic. In the room, he tampers with some machine - a state of the art holo-recorder, she acknowledges. He clicks his tongue, annoyed. It isn't easy. Everything gets in his way: the fancy cape, the medals, the dress cap, the silvery sandy hair swept to the side and refusing to remain. But he is motivated and soon he has made sure it is working.

"You're holocalling your parents, first thing tomorrow morning. Your father dearest was so sad when we left, he will want some news. _First thing_ ". It could have been cute, even gallant, but Jyn knows better. No one will enjoy such a thing, not so soon after… Of course Galen had looked "sad". He pressed Jyn's shoulder. He didn't try to help because there was no way to make it better for either of them and his daughter probably did not want to hear about his feeling on her losing her maidenhood to his -ex- lover.

 

The aforementioned ex lover doesn't even look at her as she's trying to wipe the lipstick off to keep occupied, facing down to hide her burning cheeks. He is now standing on front of a window, staring out.

"There used to be indigenous, strange species on this world. Endemic. They would sacrifice their own to some martial god…". Jyn listens, searching for whatever lesson this contains. "You have to be pretty daft to kill off your own. It is all in some journal up there in the Library. My ancestors were among the founding fathers". She still doesn't find it.

"Did they go extinct because of that?", she asks, grasping at straws.

"No. They went extinct because we needed the land".

We? Mmmm. Yes, humans. Humans mess up everything. Still, the we is odd. She imagines an olden times Krennic, with a rudimentary cape, ordering the slaughter. He had to be married for the actual Krennic to exist. Did he go home and eat delicacies and fuck his wife? She sighs. She shall probably never know what he meant to tell her. Genocide tales may be his idea of small talk. Or it is a warning, _Don't mess with the Krennics_. This is who she will be carrying babies, heirs, for, this lineage she will be mixing her own blood with. She shudders as though she thinks they may not be fully human.

 

He turns toward her, as if on cue. Searches for something on her face, in her eyes. A response to the story maybe, judgement, disapproval, sadness, horror. Pity? Before she can school her features he is staring at her lips. Jyn hopes the story didn't put him in the mood. The man always liked power. He has to like the idea of leaving such an imprint on history, on a planet. Men cannot carry life but certainly death is the next best option. Whether the tale turned him on, or he was reminded of it somehow because he was aroused, he is now standing much too close because she can feel his breath on her skin. There is still some color on her mouth, a tissue not quite enough apparently, and it contrasts with her pale cheeks. He sighs before bringing their lips together. She barely feels the touch. She moans and immediately takes a step back, hating and afraid of her reaction.

 

Krennic's hands catch her shoulders not ungently, more to ground her than to physically force her to remain.

"What is wrong Jyn?"

She has no word for everything that is wrong at the moment… To begin with, the mere fact that he asks.

"Is this about what the Grand Moff said?". She wished he didn't bring this up, this awful, awful man assuming she was actually going through all this willingly. Not that she would want to consumate this marriage without this last incident.

"Yes. No. Yes... maybe". 

"It was better to have him think… No worry. They all know you swore to kill me. Apparently one of my men heard it". He chuckles. He doesn't seem fearful. 

 

She shrugs. "Maybe we could just ignore each other". She would rather not have to actually slaughter anyone, especially since she fears she won't be able to really hurt him. And if she could avoid a disgusting ordeal…

He huffs.

"What do you mean? You knew I expect you to be my wife in all aspects". He is trying hard not to lose his temper so soon. He wants a wedding night, not some half rape. Jyn has to let him have his way if she won't participate.

"I mean… When did it get that way?". He looks puzzled, so she adds. "Between my parents and you. You were friends, and I understand there was a... falling out? Of sorts? But…". She may be dooming herself saying it outloud, though she needs it to be out in the open. "I don't know if you would rather have us all disappear from your life. Or if you would… be talking with my father instead of me" - she prays this is subtle enough - "But in any case it doesn't make sense".

He takes off his cap, and examines it, perhaps to give himself a countenance. There is no immediate anger or denial. Of neither option.

"I am known to take rash decisions sometimes", he snaps, as if it explained. It may explain the wedding, the falling out, anything really, so it explains nothing.

"I told your father I would take somewhere else whatever he would refuse. I don't mind this though", he mutters too rapidly, almost a confession of sorts. If by this he means her, it is obvious as the wedding was his idea. He throws the cap toward his desk, knocking down a little statue. Clearly he's not the one keeping his desk tidy and she has already seen he doesn't care for the servants.

"I am surprised though. You were much more enthusiastic before we were married". His trademark smirk is back. She never managed to unsettle him for long. "Maybe you preferred when we were strangers to each other". She does, but not in the way he says it.

 

"Now, things can proceed as they normally should, or not". He takes a small step toward her, his cape royally billowing though not quite as much as when they danced. What if she sent humiliatingly him back to her father? She cannot do that to her mother, she thinks, and she is disturbed at the realization that Galen could probably live with one more such night of betrayal.

"Don't think that because you are Lady Krennic, somehow I can't have you kneel for me. How nasty should things turn for you?". He sounds like he is asking her about a hologame. She is thankful, through her fog of nerves and uncertainty, that he treats it as a punishment. That _he_ , at least, remembers she cried and threatened suicide, though he didn't relent, just made sure the durasteel was solid. Still she wants to run away, even looks toward the door over her shoulder, her hands wringing above her finely designed dress. She can't run, can't fight. Her eyes rack over his form, wishing looks could kill and it would hurt him, until she spots his pet blaster at his decorated belt. Possibly the gold threads distracted her attention from the real interest of the contraption. Her heels and gown can't prevent her from shooting, right? At worst she can throw it at his unfortunately handsome face and decide she doesn't regret marking him. There will be blood on white by the end of the night, she swears. She owes it to herself. 

 

His glacier eyes follow and find what she has been looking at. He snorts, and chuckles, looking much younger. "Oh Jyn, that bad, really? I just figured it was worth the wait. Does Galen know what he raised?". His hand grazes against the pistol at his belt and he looks proud of both the weapon and the wife. Yes, he has taken some rash decisions, but most of his choices have turned out interesting at least.

 

Orson Krennic is surprised. This isn't a common occurrence that he had seen nothing coming. He extracts the pistol from its holster and all but starts bragging.

"Custom, as you can see. Or not. Anyway. This is a historical piece I had modified. It took the lives of hundreds, possibly more, rebels, even before it joined my collection. Every mark is a lowlife, see? The more interesting ones. Others did not deserve". He grins mentioning the dreadful trivia. Jyn should have guessed he collects blasters.

"Really? It suits you", she throws as an insult. But he smiles and actually nods a thank you. 

"Do you think it would mind blowing your pretty head off?", he asks not expecting an answer. She wants to comment on the fact that he speaks about the pistol as if it had a will of its own. Maybe he even gave it a name, as some would their cock according to gross banter she unfortunately overheard during her captivity of sorts. "Let's find out", he whispers.

 

He points it straight on her, then gestures with it for her to approach. Counterintuitive as it is. But she obeys. Maybe she only needs to see him as a monster, to think she has no choice, to give in to something she really wants. 

 

"Now you kiss your husband, Jyn". She treads closer, her heart in her throat. She tilts her face up, allowing him to make the final step, but he doesn't move.

"I said, kiss me". It will shame her more if she is active. It is risky. If she really doesn't want it, she can jump at him to steal the pistol from his grasp. If she really wants to die, she just has to pretend to begin an attack. While Krennic, worryingly, is not entirely sure he could kill her with his bare hands, he assumes he would shoot in a heart beat. He has killed so many foes, younger ones too, and he doesn't regret it because they had found fit to play grown up. Jyn would haunt him, and he really would rather fuck her and parade her to his ex lover before he pulls the trigger, but he absolutely will put his life first, always, even if he has to hold her dying and jerk off to the memory.

 

Jyn plunges at him indeed, but she pays no attention to the gun. She goes for his lips and kisses him open mouthed, like it matters and it is true. Her right hand reaches up into his hair and she moans before he even reciprocates, exposing herself to potential ridicule. He wants to throw the gun away and grab her, wrestle her to the ground and fuck her forever until everyone on his team worries because he is missing in action. But maybe that's the goal, so he makes sure not to lower down his guard as he slips his tongue into her mouth and they fight for control in this too. _What is going on?_ she thinks when his arm snakes around her slim waist and she doesn't resist being pressed straight against him. She wishes she could just not give a shit, not know who he is, or not care. But she is not that way, she will never be. Not even with her two hands in his hair, her tongue tasting him under the strong sting of liquor, her stomach pushing forward onto his visible erection. She doesn't realize she grinds against him and whimpers every time she feels it twitch. 

 

Suddenly he steps back and they look at each other, wondering what the hell has happened. They both hope they don't look as undone as the other. Jyn wants to cry, to laugh. This feeling, it isn't love, she tells herself, the taboo word making her frown. 

"You have just remembered you hate me?", Orson reacts to her face. The little bitch. He can't believe he was on the verge of dropping the blaster. Instead he runs the muzzle against her cheek, pushing off an errant curl with it. He grazes over her lips, now shiny and wet, imagining something else. He could have her suck it and then him, take a holorecord, send it to the happy parents… Even just the first part. It would be suggestive enough. Galen would wonder which Erso he prefers, and Lyra would finally find out what her husband stared up at so, so many times. It was worth not separating them just so they see the raw pain in each other's eyes. The idea makes him incredibly hard. 

_"Look what a harlot your raised. Your fault Galen, for marrying that lowlife"._

_"Please Orson", Galen would say, his dark sad eyes filling for him. No. "Please Sir. Please Director"._ Better. But no, again. Galen has made his choice, and it wasn't rash. Which means there's most probably no coming back, especially once Jyn bleeds on his cock. She better be good enough.

 

His hurt feelings shame him even like this. "Go on, bitch", he snarls and she startles, the vulgarity shocking from him. His blaster now trails over her curvy cleavage though his eyes are on her face. He is trying to determine whether she looks more like her mother or her father and what to do about it. If only she was an Imperial. If only she wasn't Galen's daughter. 

 

He doesn't expect her to kneel down, as he hadn't expected it the first time, not really. The muzzle plays in her curls, over the virgin veil. When she doesn't move, Orson presses the blaster to her head, not enough to be painful, but a reminder she cannot ignore. Her gown is spread around her, a vision of beauty. He almost wants to shoot and give a call to his frenemy, _show him_. But his thoughts are brought back to Jyn who isn't untucking him, just running a finger over his head. The material is wet, he feels it when she does so. What he doesn't know is that when she touches the stain she realizes she is just the same, ready for him despite or because everything. Suddenly he cannot handle the vulnerability and he pulls her up. Let her mistake it for a chivalrous act. 

 

"So after this interesting… interlude. You didn't really reply. What do you want?". Jyn has to reflect quite a bit to remember what that was about. Oh yes. She assumes normal wouldn't take place in his office, with a blaster to her head. Jyn will hurt and bleed, she has accepted it. No, what she fears, is how it will make her feel. 

 

"Are you going to kill me?". She doesn't ask before or after. "Was it deactivated or something?". After all, a weapon could be for show. He sighs, looking exhausted and finally puts it down on his desk, but doesn't answer. There is something deadened and depleted in his gaze as if he didn't really want things to go down that route. The man probably has enough self control to not pull the trigger when he comes. Imperial training aside, she still is grateful that he didn't make her suck him off like a prisoner from the battlefield, on her wedding night. 

 

"I will be gentle".

This could actually refer to fucking, or killing. Not hurt her more than absolutely necessary. "This time". Trademark sneer on again and she scolds herself for ever thinking he appeared disappointed about the situation. First option then. She lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in. This is more consent than he needs. She looks down and as she expects he is still hard. 

"To bed, then", he whispers, leaning in. She tries not to summon any image, any memory of when she pictured this moment, white on white until there is red, and she lets him lead her out of the office. Even those memories, though, are better than the cold hard fact: she hasn't made one single attempt at grabbing the gun.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The woman battlefield reference is obviously Game of Thrones - Brienne's father, I THINK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "This way, Lady Krennic, this way".

There is no resistance until they reach the bedroom, actually she clings to him as if he was twisted salvation. But when she takes the bedroom, the bed, in, it becomes quite real and it is all too much. She suddenly finds it hard to breathe, and she extracts herself from his grasp. She almost trips into her own gown. If he is losing patience, he doesn't show it. She doesn't leave the room but remains distant, taking a step back for every attempt from him at coming closer. 

"I can't breathe", she panics. A bit dramatic, but still he is not laughing yet.

"Sit down". He nods to the bed but doesn't say the word. "I'm not getting any closer", he reassures when she seems to lose it at the mere mention.

 

She racks her brain for memories of him outright lying as opposed to tricking her. But again her legs feel like jelly and she gracelessly lets herself fall more than she sits, not arranging her gown about hers.

"Breathe, slow". He could be instructing a young cadet before her first battle. There is something to this image that rings true. Heir-bearing is a woman's battlefield.

 

"This is happening anyway, so you better just… go through with  it. I never delay what must be done, and I doubt a few days would make much of a difference to you". The end of the sentence is almost a question, one she cannot answer because she thinks indeed she agrees.

 

"So", he shrugs, as if it was all, no big deal. "You are a lucky one, because I have been warned that the first time hurts, and I _know_ it does". Jyn bites the inside of her cheek, unsure that the fact her own father taught this to her husband in such a personal way makes her in any way lucky. She feels quite confused over her desire to know more, coupled with a fear of the very same.

She's not going to ask him if he bled, not that it would tell anything about her own personal experience. In fact the whole comparison is off, probably, but this is the closest he can relate, making it about himself. This is Krennic…..

 

He approaches now, slowly, but surely. He sits down, close enough but too distant for contact. He doesn't say anything, just looks at her and slides toward her. They are breathing fast, him for obvious reasons, her for much more conflicting ones. Jyn doesn't react when he finally brings a hand to take her own but she feels caged when he goes for the second one and she attempts to push him away. 

 

The director won't have any of that. He has waited, he has endured humiliation from Tarkin himself, not to mention Galen's antics. Now, he _has_ her. He grabs her wrists as if to show her all that, not too aggressively but definitely - she is his.

 

"I can't, I told you, I _can't_ ", she hiccups. He keeps holding her slim wrists, either so she won't hurt herself or so she won't try to get up.

When she seems a tiny bit calmer, he lets go. One of his hands finds its way under the gown, slowly grazing against her leg.

"Look at me only", he says, when her eyes search for a sign of what is going on. It feels good, much better than it should, almost appeasing. She almost panics again when he reaches her thighs. "Lucky you. They say the Grand Moff was out of the nuptial chambers by ten minutes, so…". So of course, she needs to appreciate that he bothers.

"He is… married?", she squeaks. He gives a short breathy laugh.

"Strange as it seems… The Empire needs children". There is no other reason. Krennic is cold, but Tarkin has literally nothing human.

Her skin burns like an inferno where he finally rubs her through her underwear. She whimpers, her legs betraying her as they part only for an instant before she takes control again. 

"Shhhh, all good", he whispers. It is ridiculous because it is _all wrong_ , she thinks, but still it helps.

 

She pleads "No" when his fingers slip under the material but it sounds like a yes. He grazes along her slit, smirking at how wet she is. She averts her eyes, horrified as he finds out.  _It cannot be. He is a cold blooded killer, yet he makes me burn._

"I said look at me, or this is stopping". Definitely a bet, because she just said no, but her eyes dart back to his, dark in more than color. She keeps hiccuping occasionally, though it may be more of a gasp.

He massages her clit then, only pressing on it when she starts trembling. She is so wet her thighs are sticky, he realizes. _How she will feel around him_... He squirms to relieve an erection. Krennic touches her lower then, gently circling until he finds where he will take her. He makes no attempt to penetrate, just caresses and rubs there until her legs part again and she pants. He wonders if he can make her peak without touching her clit, and if yes, what it will mean for their coupling. She will probably be coming hard, he thinks, and he almost scolds her for looking away yet another time. But then he figures it: she is actually staring at his cock, erection visible through the white layers. Let her stare, he thinks, but when her hand timidly goes for it, he only gives her a few seconds before he pushes it away.

 

She tenses as if she did something wrong, and he feels the need to explain, embarrassment readable on his face. The way he blushes is one of the few things he cannot keep control and track of.

"Don't, or I'll…". She gives a giggle that turns into a whine, understanding. She didn't do anything wrong, it is the opposite problem. She loves the idea that she has so much power that a small touch could cause this. Jyn wonders, not for the first time, how many partners exactly he had since her father… And figures, actually, maybe not that many and not that often. Some of their interactions had been so awkward. Yet kissing a woman, embracing a woman, couldn't be much different?

 

He keeps touching her, seeking the best angle for her reaction. He wants to fuck her just now. But he also wants her to do more than bearing it with teary eyes. He wants to come home and fuck her first thing. He wants her to be willing and enthusiastic, to immediately respond when he touches her, to actually seek him out and give him release after a long day, or under his desk.

 

The idea makes him moan and her eyes dart to his lips, not quite begging for a kiss yet. She is out of breath, and he prays he is the first to do that to her. He alternates the techniques, circling and rubbing, and gently pinching at her clit, then pressing against her entrance. She doesn't resist much, not even when his finger gets in - not by much - and he finally feels how burning she is inside. 

 "Fuck Jyn fuck". Maybe his tone wrecks her more than his relentless massage of her most sensitive area.

"Please no. Don't…" _Don't make me like it. Don't make me like you._ She suspects it has more to do with the tension that roils and wrecks, throbbing low, than with his level of expertise but in a way it is worse. 

"Too late", he coos. He pushes a bit harder, a bit deeper, and she can hear the noise it is making, she is making, wet to the core.

He can't help starting to talk again, telling her what exactly he is going to do with her that night, and all the following ones. Those Imperials sure love to hear themselves talk. If it turns her off, it doesn't show in the way her body reacts. 

 

The mere idea that he'll put his dick there soon keeps him going… Because he's not stopping now. And he actually removes his hand when she starts moaning shamelessly, worldlessly begging for release. She whimpers in protest, but he tells her, voice low and breathy: "You're going to come on my cock now". The boost to his ego, the power, it is strong enough to drown the slight disgust and the frustration, the what ifs.

 

" _I don't think I can_ ", she whispers. That's actual progress from before, and he rewards it with a searing kiss that is immediately welcomed. He uses that moment to push her back onto the bed, climbing on top of her and lifting up her skirt. He cannot believe they are there, finally. She doesn't even tremble when he caresses her legs, but tenses when he attempts to pull down her underwear. Not a problem. He pulls it aside instead and she either can't or doesn't want to resist. Maybe she doesn't understand, not fully, until he meddles with his own buttons out of her sight, though it is easy to tell what is going on. She must be in denial. The family is big on that. Thinking back to Galen enrages him -he hides it carefully - but also makes him harder than before. He doesn't know who he is thinking of as he guides himself against her, rubbing the cock head against her folds. She moans. She doesn't exactly open her legs, but she allows him to part them and slip between them. For a few moments he is still, pleasuring her with his cock, then he dips lower and finds it. "So ready", he murmurs, pretending expertise, but she is and he doesn't have to part her folds. He pushes against her hole, more knowledgeable in theory than in practice, but she's so warm and slippery he has no trouble. 

 

"You're so wet", he teases. Didn't she say something like this to him? **** ~~~~

 

They both gasp as he reaches a dead end, as if they reacted to the situation at last. Until now, there had been no real consequence. His wife - a strange idea, he never planned to saddle himself with a woman, and yet - will never be the same again.

 

"Jyn...". He looks down to her, his pale blue eyes taking in the white lacy veil, the white face too. Orson isn't exactly searching for permission or approval but he wants to gauge the situation. She isn't averting her eyes or closing them, on contrary she is fixated on his face, fear and puzzlement and surprise and yes, wonder; she doesn't tell him to proceed but suddenly he is aware that she is clinging to him. She wasn't when he let go her wrists. Jyn is oddly taking comfort in the very man inflicting this on her.

 

There is nothing else to do, barring to stop, and this isn't an option, so he goes for the kill. He doesn't enjoy the look of pain and naked terror on her face half as much as he expected to. _This is Galen's daughter with that kriffin' Lyra_ , he tells himself as motivation. It only helps slightly. Jyn yelps, but she clings closer. Surely an instinct.

 

She sobs a few times, and he can't deny it looks real, not like some act she would be putting on to turn him off or rile him up.

"It's alright", he tells her softly as he wipes a tear away. But when another comes, he decides it's a good look on her. It's all a good look on her, Jyn Kriffin Erso on her back for him, in a wedding gown, letting him fuck her and feeling so wet - there must be some blood by now, he ponders suddenly as if he wasn't fully trusting her not to be disgraced.

 

The idea jolts him into movement and he presses his hips closer, taking her all the way in. Jyn breathes hard. 

"So fucking tight", he comments as if he had no idea how exactly she would be.

 

He remembers he wanted to have her coming on his cock, so he fights to slow himself, trying various angles until she stops looking so tense. It takes time before she seems to really give in, her breathing less erratic until it grows so, again, in another way. 

 

"Oh my God", she whispers, and then she keeps repeating it, her voice breaking as she balls her fists into the white material of his uniform. She isn't certain when the pain turned into this. There is fire and ice in his eyes, his honeyed hair, an image of purity in white… He doesn't look like a man who would be currently doing this, certainly not because he couldn't fuck her father.

 

"That's good, let go, beautiful". His fingers trace her cheek, her chin, her lips that part for him as they did on that fated day. He doesn't really know how to encourage her, but it should be sooner than later or he'll just finish before her and he can't have that. "So beautiful Jyn, so tight, I need y...". He wasn't meaning to say that, and she obviously is troubled. Her hand leaves his uniform and tangles in his hair to bring his mouth against hers as she sobs once. She swallows his moans and the idea that he doesn't seem to be able to hold on much longer sends her flying.

 

When Krennic decided to marry her, he didn't envision her coming around him, basically grabbing his head to kiss him as she did. It was more about enjoying his lover's - he still refers to him as such, sometimes - collapse. He would either not touch Jyn, or fuck her quick and cold just so he could say she was really his. Get his heir, in the dark, if it worked. As she is coming back to herself, she runs her hands along his back, encouraging now. Jyn is certain he doesn't need it but for some reason she wants to. So she speaks to him, as he did to her. She feels a bit silly doing so, but she tells herself he'll like it, whatever she says. Jyn answers his moans with hers, hoping a yes here and there will do. She tucks his hair behind his ear without thinking, the gesture too intimate for comfort in any other situation. How did it get there, from her promising to kill him or herself if he touched her?

 

He is so close, moving against her, rhythm forgotten. She can't help wondering if he looked like this with her father, shoving the thought back as much as she could immediately. She couldn't exactly study him as she was going down on him so this time she's enjoying watching his face. He doesn't tell her he's on the very edge but she senses it.

"Just like this, don't stop", she moans, vaguely wondering if she could come again. Probably not enough time. She detests that she feels regret. Detests that she wants him again. "Come on, you won't have that long when I suck you off in your office", she simpers, seductive. His manhood jumps. _Kriff, where does that come from?_ She never planned to really go along with whatever fantasy he may entertain. "I hate you so much…", she whispers, burning as if she was offering forbidden pleasures to the man, as she is sure Galen said once too. Another word might well have been just as real, if not more. Want. Love. Or, I hate myself. The Director doesn't exactly detest hearing that. He calls her name, and he comes hard, light headed and shivering, pleasure pulsating. 

 

"Yes", she says, still caressing wherever she can reach. It seems to last forever, Orson filling her again and again, unsure it has ever been that long, that strong. Why was it already that he didn't want to take her? It peters down when he starts wondering how normal it is. He doesn't collapse on her so as not to crush her, his last strength leaving him. He considers resting his head somewhere until she takes hold of him and leads him against her bosom. Too intimate, again. That's one reason to get up and leave. A second one, would be the blood, probably everywhere on the gown, the bed and kriff, he wasn't careful about his uniform, though it would be hardly the first time. He stares at her as if he couldn't believe it all.

"I'm there", she all but coos. She's there all right, not going anywhere. Krennic isn't sure where the odd vulnerability comes from. He repeats to himself that he took her, made her bleed and keen on his cock, yet her innocent eyes see right through his lies, unravel him to the core.

 

It has to happen again, he decides, he can't deny the appeal of the whole thing, especially now that he's on eye level with her cleavage. "So good", she whispers, saying what he thought outloud, her hand both keeping him and caressing him, playing with the sandy hair. He smells warm, good, the same cologne as when she found herself in his arms first. Both try to reconcile what has happened with their truth. Jyn doesn't ask if he needed to think of her father to finish, though she doubts it. Orson doesn't ask if she really means to suck him at the bureau, hoping she does. She has grown slightly more cynical and she just knows that come morning, he'll still be the Director and she'll still be Galen's daughter and he might still holocall her parents so he can gloat seeing them red  eyed from a long night of imagining the worst. There is no way he would let them know she came first, or at all, and that he told her he needed her. The gap between what should be done and what she wants to do becomes a chasm where her self worth and dignity could drown. He looks up and she looks down at the same time, the eye contact searing. 

 

"Sleep now, gorgeous", she coaxes, almost motherly. If he fell asleep, she could get up, retrieve the blaster, end this - whatever it is - and save the world. If he falls asleep, it would mean he felt safe enough to do so in her arms… She imagines his pretty face, almost too delicate, his soft lips, his expression decades younger. She could do anything for it, possibly as her father had, even though she knows exactly what lies beneath. Betraying his trust was never a concept though now she wonders if she could, even for her parents. The booze and adrenaline have been too much even for the Director. Orson Krennic is half asleep in her embrace and there is no way she is spoiling this. She thinks of what transpired between them and she smiles. _Kriff it all_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So where should this be going?

Welcoming suggestions and apologizing for this non chapter!

So where should this be going?  
I mean, things can't end well for Krennic even if Jyn remains with him… Should he survive? Should she beg her father not to go through with his plan? Or should she try to get Krennic not to go to work that day? Isn't that too OOC for both? How AU should it go?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was long... sorry! Real life and various muse problems took me away but I'm back! Thanking everyone for the comments, kuddos and ideas!

 

 

 

 

 "I suppose they don't know yet", he teases, or taunts.

 

 

 

 

 

In the end he doesn't make her do it. Call her dad first thing when she wakes up. He actually allows her to eat, and she is thankful for a second until she realizes she is being grateful for being allowed to not starve before being paraded through holo in front of her parents, a walk of shame for sure because Krennic has made it clear, he would fuck her all night.

 

And he did. And she came. Both of them don't want her parents to find this detail. Him, because he wants them to suffer, imagining the worst they could. Her, because she already prefers them doing so, to anyone knowing she got an orgasm out of losing her maidenhead to Director Krennic. She told herself he made her drink, he rubbed her until she couldn't do anything but come, he had experience and knew just what to do - the last one wasn't exactly true, not with the ladies' crowd anyway. Maybe he read up on the topic just so he would be the best at everything. The idea made her chuckle.

 

Another woman, less sheltered, more experienced, would have felt that there was something wrong from start. The animosity too personal, the utter lack of interest in her most of the time. A womanizer would have had much more visible experience. She had never caught him inappropriately gazing at girls as some men did. Yet he had the ego, the looks of a womanizer. Those things rarely stopped at that. He should have tried harder at hiding his lack of experience, and even in such a state she caught that he had been surprised the first time he made her come.  
  
As she sat down to his holorecorder, she wondered if he ever did this to her father, have him come when he really didn't want, because Lyra, because Empire… And as her parents worried faces appeared, she rejected any notion of Krennic jerking her father off while the man reluctantly gave himself to pleasure.

 

"Hi mom, dad", she fake smiles, plastering it over her tired features and blushing already before anything is said.

"Hi mom, dad", Krennic repeats with a wicked laugh, standing behind her and leaning in, a hand possessively on her shoulder. She hadn't even noticed. She is getting used to being touched by him.

 

Predictably they both cringe. So unfun for him, when it is that easy. 

 

"Can we talk to our daughter?", Lyra asks, sourly.

"Of course, please do", Krennic replies in a honeyed voice. The tone ignites fire in her loins. He spoke like that to her during the night, to get her to climax.

"Alone". Lyra sounds quite like a sourpuss and Jyn understands it's her last defense against a man who took everything from her.

"I fear not. We're one entity now, married life… I take it so very seriously"

Lyra looks to her husband, who is chewing his lower lip. She elbows him out of the view of the camera and he tenses. Does she reproach him with not taking it that seriously, with not intervening, something else?

"Huh, hi. Stardust". Galen has to make it clear that he's addressing his daughter, not this new son of his. He doesn't ask if she is fine.

"Hi dad", Krennic replies. "Forgive Jyn, she was so impatient to talk to you and tell you all about last night she didn't even think of changing". He doesn't zoom on her gown. There is no need. It is rumpled, her hair is disheveled, and he regrets telling her to take her make up off. "Your make up is smudged, Lady Krennic", he says anyway. It is not refined, not noble, not dign. He had to really want to hurt Galen to spout out such things. Jyn hates him for that but in some way she also feels for him. Galen chose Lyra. He does. Everyday. Krennic is alone with cold machines and black and white blueprints and dreams and delusions of grandeur.

 

Krennic pats down at his perfect pristine uniform. He changed, of course. He wouldn't allow even Jyn to see him au naturel come the morning. His hair is perfectly coiffed.

"So what's new, Galen? Willing to get to work finally?". Work. She needs to find out more. "Anyway, we've been quite busy and sadly it looks like I'll be late to the bureau". His hand slips from her shoulder, sneaks under the material. It feels warm and her body reacts, squirming, before she senses her parents' gaze trained on her. He's staring right back, ignoring Jyn except for the way he's kneading at her flesh.

"Orson…". Galen pleads. Krennic stops suddenly.

"You brought temptation into this, Galen, you distracted me on your back and knees". Jyn inhales, a gasp almost, as Lyra silently rages, her eyes speaking of death and braziers. "You said the child wouldn't change anything".

Lyra seems to be giving a silent scream. Jyn doesn't realize she is the child. "Then. You decided you wanted to give normal life a try. So be it. Here is the result. Imagine you had a son instead, Galen. It would be... Glorious". He pets Jyn again as a young, wild animal.

"Galen we need to catch up, have a night out some time". He loves to say her father's name, caressing and bitter, threatening but also like a lover. It is so awful she can feel the stress on the other side of the holo.

"Fuck you Orson!", her mother exclaims, outside of the field of vision. "Fuck you!". Something flies toward the cam and Orson bursts out laughing. "Always the fiery temper… I see where Lady Krennic got hers from - the good looks are from the other side obviously". Jyn wants it to end. She turns her face to look at him, a frown on her youthful face but stops mid movement as she notices how hard he is inside his fitted pants. Too fitted for a man one would say. Could be from imagining Galen's son, younger and sharing his father's interests in all ways, or from kneading her warm flesh. She stares enraptured, then finally searches for his face, meeting his icy eyes. She doesn't remember what she wanted. He does. Lyra is nowhere to be seen on the screen but he guides her hand to his fly. He doesn't have to press it because she instinctively touches him, tracing the form. She inhales shakily, all air gone from the room. There is a strangled cry and she freezes before daring to peek at the holo. It's not Lyra, it is Galen, and he's looking at Orson as if he was. Jealous. _Fuck_. Krennic smirks and she removes her hand as if she was burned, hurt that he was just provoking his ex lover. _Ex?_

 

"We will be going soon, Galen. Lyra… Wherever in the galaxy you are…". He taunts her, gesturing a goodbye, all knowing that she is nearby, watching it all, hiding her tears. "I still can't guarantee this won't hurt her, Galen. Last night was quite... Interesting. But she doesn't mind, I think". He turns it off as Galen gapes.

Jyn feels a tear escaping, rolling down her cheek, and she knows that she is jealous also. Humiliated. Shamed about and for her mother. She acts quite low class compared to her new husband, though he is barely acting human. She swallows and brings her hand to his erection again, looking up. Resisting isn't the way. It isn't even what she wants. She can jerk him off and be rid of it. He recoils once the holo is dark. Maybe really she disgusts him. A female. The way he sometimes looks at other men… It isn't that often, but she has noticed it occasionally. No, it has to be friendship or appreciation, familiarity a soldier only had with men, even if it trails a little lower than needed or a little longer. It could all be in her head. Her husband is a manly man, he wouldn't like other men and if he did, he wouldn't allow himself. She doesn't even know who he would go for. _Not him not him_. She mentally reviews the men around him daily, those she met at the wedding. Somehow it turns into imagining her husband embracing some anonymous figure in a uniform, lips locking into biting kisses, definitely no lack of experience there... _Touch me, officer_ … The vision is repulsive yet lits a fire in her stomach. She knows quite well that it is simple for admiration to turn into something else, when the object was handsome and charismatic. She has seen it among the rebels. There would be no shortage of interested petty officers or junior engineers. The mere idea is enough for her to rub harsher.

 

"You don't need to. I was… ", he nods toward the machine. He was bragging for the movie of course.

"You're going to go to my father, right?", she asks. Her hand is on him still again.

"...No".

The hesitation is the worst. 

"You've seen him before we were married though".

"Yes".

"You fucked with him"

He oddly cringes at the word. Does he call it love? She lets out a barking laugh.

"You did".

"Not after… we were engaged". Her hands are struggling with the fly now, showcasing her ignorance. She hates herself for this, even more because she cares.

"Fuck, you did". It still seems surreal, with every proof she gets.

 

She stops and stands.

"I want a divorce".

She doesn't know where this is coming from. What will she do now if he grants it? Tell her parents she's back, after only one night of debauchery with their arch enemy, until he tired of her?

"Never. Krennics do not 'divorce'. You're probably pregnant anyway". His gaze falls down to her stomach. He manages to stay calm with his fly half undone - one could admire it. "It's hormones speaking. You'll spend the better part of your life that way". He smirks.

Her eyes goggle in horror at the reality of it.

"What did you think? I... wasn't careful last night. Why would I?". He sounds almost a little bit apologetic. "Krennics are known to be very virile". She rolls her eyes.

"I don't care about Krennics". She doesn't bother explaining that virility and fertility are different.

He approaches softly, and takes hold of her hand. She is unsettled when he brings it to his mouth, kissing the tender soft skin. "Too bad, my lady, because you are one now. Behave. Don't make me punish you in your state".  She considers faking this as she considered faking in the bedroom, but didn't have to. 

 

Disturbed, she goes on. "I... I have no reason to think I'm pregnant. It can take months".

"Not going to happen"

"You have many bastards then? From… mistresses?". The idea is slightly nauseating. Poor kids, poor women, but above all, she doesn't want to meet some random children with shiny blond hair and deep deep eyes. She attempts to yank her hand away, he won't let.

"No", he responds curtly. She looks puzzled. Then. _Oh_.

"You're the only woman, Jyn". He's not lying and she knows it. This is every woman's dream, this phrase, and yet… For her, for them, it means quite entirely something else.

"Hum...", she clears her throat, flushing again. "You have many siblings?". 

He shakes his head, denying. "My mother wasn't… quite… right in her head".

He hates that he is confessing sob stories. Jyn suddenly realizes his parents werent at the wedding. "She… lives on the domain?". Is she the proverbial mad woman in the attic?

 

"She's buried on the domain", he replies, absolutely no sentiment on his face. Full on Imperial officer. Jyn startles, her heart beating erratic. "Kriff… fuck".

"Language" he scolds, more bothered by this than by the discussion.

"I mean, I'm sorry". 

"Nothing to be sorry about. She's better that way, and so am I." She gapes at the cold answer, grasps at straws to imagine what it hides, able to breathe but barely. "Nothing that you could know either, this is but a marriage of convenience and I'm not having any expectation except heirs". Oh, he's lashing out. She files this away as a weakness.

 

But she fears for her own sanity now. Being married to a Krennic could do that to you. She doesn't want her son forcing himself on some girl while she is buried in luxury in some marble grave.

"You're strong", he says as if he was sensing it. Not 'I won't harm you'. "She was… a lady. Weak. Delicate". He smirks again, his eyes trailing over her wedding gown in disarray, wetting his lips when he reaches her low neckline. "She would have hated you". This is not fully a put down. For the first time she considers that maybe Lady Krennic didn't care for her one and only heir.

 

"You will give me sons. I'll enjoy it whether you cooperate or not…". His sentence ends as a whisper. Without looking she is certain he is hard again, if he ever lost it. "My father wasn't powerful enough to marry down". He's literally gloating about this, humiliating his father, his mother and his wife in one sitting. 

 

She takes a step aside. "You said I don't have to".

He smiles a predator's smile. "Oh dear… But this was before you said you wanted to leave… I can't have that"

He sits down in the chair behind his desk and it scrapes as he makes space.

"Remember at the wedding? Sit here". He pats his thigh. If he wasn't so pale she would be unable to distinguish the slight blush.

 

"I won't hurt as much if you're…". She gets it. "Try not to bleed all over me this time".

The taunt is closer to a tease, as if he was hiding his embarrassment. He looks down, fiddling with his fly, and she is happy he's not staring as she approaches a bit too quick. The gown will hide it all. No one has to know. He helps her with her skirt, chivalrous when there's something for him in it, and she feels him hard against her folds. She gasps when he pushes himself in, biting her lip to not show him it is more than uncomfortable.

She sees him staring, a smirk on his lips, and she doubts he can ignore it - the pain on her face, the pleasure feeding off of it. He fills her so well, and his cold eyes burn for her. Jyn waits for him to pick up and start but he doesn't, so she gives in, her thighs already sore from last night. She gasps when she slides down, him reaching something sensitive deep inside. Orson lets her lead for several thrusts, enjoying the show until he needs the control, as he always does. She whimpers in pleasure or pain or shame, his hands bruising on her hips and she angles herself to rub against his length. He manages to stay silent much longer, letting go only when she moans and whines, her cries sounding too much like yes and please for her own taste. If he asked if she wanted him to stop or continue, she would be unable to reply, or she would say both so she is thankful he doesn't care enough to ask.

"You will be late", she tries, last resort, as if she cared for his projects. He chuckles.

"My assistant certainly is a worry wart". Jyn freezes, as if… Yes of course, such a man wouldn't breathe without an assistant, dressed up or down at will, starry-eyed and just the right side of gaudy. "Good head for maths, clean and efficient", he babbles, as if on cue. _Everything I am not_ , she thinks. She tries to get away, he grabs her as rough as his tone is gentle. "What man doesn't like a pretty face?", he teases almost, as nausea coils through her stomach. _Fucker_. "I always thought he looked like Erso, but young". There is nothing sadder than refusing to grow old, except maybe the relief that washes over her.

"Women aren't worthy of serving stimcaf", she groans, hoping it hides the aforementioned relief.

They are doing it. It is all dawning on her. She has thrown herself at the enemy. Opened her mouth, her legs for him. She has come around him, while he finished inside of her - they had come together and she caressed him through that. Her virginal blood was on his hands. Her purity, her innocence… On Director Krennic's uniform. On Director Krennic's cock.  **** ~~~~

He stifles his own groans for a moment, but she clenches around him harder when he shows his enjoyment so he decides to give her this. He is close now, too quick for his taste, so he tenses, his stomach and thighs contract, in the end he shamefully has to pause, Jyn looking at him in surprise until she gets it and smiles smug, her time to mock him. He can't allow that. Jyn smirks her hands leaving his shoulders for her breasts, teasing and massaging them under his nose. He feels pleasure, warm and prickly, spread to his lower stomach and his upper thighs. Maybe he could come just from this, the show she is putting on for him. He shall never know as she starts moving against him, up and down as in the beginning, and he grabs her to get her to stop but doesn't actually put an end to this. He twitches and mouths something that could be Kriff, or Jyn, as he fills her in creamy white, only then realizing he didn't have to think of Galen. His orgasm somehow triggered her own though he wasn't trying. She cries out against his shoulder, clenching and fluttering hard. Her hands shake on his arms, exhaustion or adrenaline. The Director will certainly be late but this is part of the war effort, he thinks.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooops. I. Did it again.
> 
> More smutty character study. Faites-la taire!

 

 

"You've been fucking around", she yells. She has been waiting just by the door, like a predating animal. She must look unhinged and she doesn't care. She wonders, why is she not afraid him? Hatred is stronger, or whatever she feels that makes her head spin and her mouth dry. "I'm going to kill you!". She had already threatened this though for the opposite reasons, because she didn't want him to touch her then - or so she thought.

Granted, she had been neglectful in what he calls her wifely duties since she learned that her father had to work on something he really, really didn't want to be participating in. He had told her so, swallowing back tears, on the holo - the only way she was allowed to communicate, and _he_ made her thank him every time after in a way she wanted to call humiliating. Perhaps more because seeing Galen troubled him than for any other reason. He would fixate on her face as if to prove himself he didn't need to think of a man, or look away completely. These times she wished him dead but still couldn't help doing it. Now her father's distress at his increasingly dirty hands and guilty conscience, she couldn't stand. She started fighting back the only way he would care. She hated that she didn't do more than that. She hated that she needed it more than he did. For all his pent up passion, the man was absolutely in control of himself, cold and reasonable. Not a hot head like Jyn.

 

But. That's when the fantasies started, he tells himself, though in fact they did on the day he had her in his office, threatening to kill everyone. He wanted nothing more than take her in front of her damned father, show him what he missed, what he would do to her… He would kiss her, exploring her mouth with his tongue, until Galen couldn't take it. Then he would go after him as he attempted to leave the room, prevent him from going, and he would kiss him too, until they couldn't breathe anymore. What he wouldn't given for his mouth against his lips, or wrapped around his dick as he pulled at his curls. "Your hair is a bit long", he once told Jyn, and she freaked out because she knew. Shamefully - though he hated that the Ersos could make him feel so - he had touched himself envisoning an excruciatingly detailed blow job from Galen, which was actually the twin of the one his daughter gave him, licking and swallowing him. Galen had always liked the taste or acted as if he did, it was difficult to know. Orson had, too, in his younger years when everything wasn't about power and he allowed himself the pleasure of making Galen come inside his mouth. His moans and cries - how he called his name - only more intense when he took him or the very few times Krennic had been drunk enough to get him ready with his tongue, circling and wetting where he would be. Orson still couldn't bring himself to put his mouth on his wife, but she had loved his fingers rubbing just the same. There had actually been some of how he caressed Galen there in what he attempted with his wife. Galen had once come from that and this had been a treasured memory he still touched himself to. More and more as Jyn flaunted herself but refused to give him release. Bearable in the beginning, it had gotten complicated. She wore those elegant gowns he bought her, not letting a lady get casual, and tonight wasn't any different, though she had somehow forgotten to button the top up. He would probably spy her bra if he cared, or dared. 

 

Jyn had expected consequences to her constant refusals. Expected and awaited - a slap, or his superior strength. But her husband had been oddly patient, sticking around with his nose in his unholy blueprints because above all he prided himself an academic, then only coming home slighty late, until… this. 

"You're coming home at the crack of dawn and I'm supposed to believe you didn't get some harlot to suck you off". There's fire and ice in her voice. He looks upset, annoyed, or maybe he has a head ache. He rubs his forehead, pinching the bridge of his nose. _Serves him!_

"Let's go to sleep, I am tired", he attempts. The worst. For all of his reputation and all the rumours, Krennic doesn't know women intimately.

 

 " _You_ are tired? I assume you didn't put it inside her, you're not man enough to enjoy that". She is bitter, hateful, she wants to hurt him where his pride lies as well as his self doubts. What if he didn't cheat though… No, if he hadn't released he would already be ready for her after so many weeks of nothing, since he always loved fights for the adrenaline and power play. She cannot stop. It scares her. "Did she call you Director? Was she wet for you?". It makes no sense. He would not know whether she wanted him too if he just got a quick blowjob and it doesn't matter, she is not jealous. She wants to claw at his face so no one ever looks at him, dumb men, even dumber women he enjoys flirting with before dropping them.

 

She stalks him, trying to determine what - who… He doesn't smell like cheap perfume, but it doesn't mean anything. He does smell of liquor and expensive cigarettes. 

"You drank? Who did you see there? You spent a lot on _that_ ". _When you have everything home_. She imagines a seedy bar, or a decadent club, exclusive and men only. Men only.

 

She remembers the night out he mentioned…

 

She inhales abruptly because there is something aking to guilt on his face and this isn't an expression she sees often in that house. Kennics don't do guilt.

 

"You were with him. Seven hells. With my… dad?". Her last word is a shriek, as if she was calling him.

 

"You said you wouldn't. You said you wouldn't cheat on me!"

She's dramatic and she knows it and doesn't care. The only answer is the one he cannot give, because it does shame him to be unable to do without.

 

Why did she think she could handle this? She is both screaming and crying now, not recognizing herself. She grabs at the century old legacies, the trinkets collected on Lexrul, and she throws them at him, as her mother had through the holo. He dodges most of them, because her aim is terrible in her state. But he doesn't scold or retaliate, not yet, because there's this feeling nagging in the bottom of his stomach. He looks at her puzzled. Neither of them was expecting this. Does she really care? Is it her ego? Krennic understands ego better than any one. If he could cry, if he had tears, they would shed over that. She trips over nothing and catches herself, her hands grasping the table's edge. She stops moving and he approaches carefully, pushing his cape back as if to shield it from the storm.

 

He takes her into his arms, embracing her and she pushes back, hits him on the torso with her closed fists. He grabs them and buries his face in her hair. Liquor. _She smells as Galen did when…_

"You've been at my liquor collection I see. How many thousands credits did you destroy?". He speaks gently, almost sing songy, to appease her.

"I should burn it all down, raze the house to the ground, destroy the fucking…"

He doesn't correct her language.

"You see now how I felt when he chose her…" he murmurs, and for once, for the first time, she doesn't quite agree but she gets it.

 

Her screaming ceases immediately and she looks for his eyes. They're red though dry.

 

"You're not touching me ever again. You should be my father's wife. Don't you even try and fail at...". She's lying, and it can be heard in her voice. He didn't quite fail at fucking her, though whether his thoughts wander she'll never have evidence for or against. She'll never have evidence that he is actually fucking someone else when he uses her, when they both think of Galen but in different ways, when she comes despite it and wishes she were dead.

"Krennics don't debase themselves forcing anyone. They take what is theirs". His voice is eerily quiet, but he peppers little kisses into her scalp. 

"That's the same thing", she mumbles. She doesn't tell him she doesn't care for Krennics so she doesn't hear she is one. Her hands are fisting his white uniform, and she enjoys the texture. She nestles her face against him as if she could hear his heartbeat. She had almost been surprised the first time she heard it. 

 

"We were meant to discuss his… plans. One thing led to another". Not an apology, an explanation. 

"I hate him", she mutters against the cloth, raging that she doesn't hate Krennic most.

"No. He probably thought this would spare you". Of course… Misguided, misunderstood father. Story of his life. She laughs and cries, some more. 

"Mom is going to be crazy". Crazier than Jyn is, crazier than Lyra is already, though never as crazy as the first lady Krennic.

"No, not if you don't tell her". He whispers as it those were love words, when they drip with venom and contempt for the woman. He should have named the Death Star project Lyra.

"You serious?". She tenses in his arms, this is betrayal again, and she hates that she is calming down in the embrace of such a man but she is. Even when he cheated on her with her father and is telling her it should be their little secret - him, Galen, and Jyn.

"Don't say anything. I won't either if you behave, Stardust".

She snarls at his use of her father's nickname. And at the threat. Lyra has lost it already on the com. Her hearing she and her daughter are both being betrayed by their husbands - together… No, Jyn cannot imagine and cannot bring herself to literally mess with her mother's head even more. She tries to imagine her husband seduced by some asshole who then becomes her fucking son in law. _Hi mom, dad_. She cannot imagine this. She hides her face in his white and closes her eyes so she doesn't see it. But she can smell him.

 

"Don't ever drink like this again. This isn't good for you"

She puffs. "Yes, dad", and when he doesn't comment, she adds. "I'm not pregnant". Almost snapping, not exactly.

"You don't know that", she replies, letting go of her wrists, tentatively. He wouldn't hurt the vessel carrying his flesh and blood, his heir. A boy of course for a man like him as a firstborn. She stares up at him. "And I don't want you to drink anyway, you're not used to it and… That's good".

 

"Did your mother drink?", she asks suddenly out of nowhere. He doesn't say anything but there's some fleeting feeling in his gaze that says, _don't go there. Obviously she drank. Booze and stims and whatever she could get under hand. Do not even._

 

What is wrong with her that this touches her, and that she keeps thinking of how he felt when her father rejected him? Jyn looks up finally, ready to face him or so she thinks. Her hand trails toward his face, her fingers hovering until she finds it in herself to caress his cheek. Her breath came in short gusps, her breasts straining against the half undone corset. He presses against her, welcoming it despite talks of betrayal and childhood nightmares, and she went on her toes, biting his lip when she felt him hard against her hip. His flesh is much too soft and warm. The man should be marble, ice. He is real there and it weakens her resolve.

 

"You still want to go to sleep?", she asks, taunting. "You should".

"I want to fuck", he says, grabbing her slim waist and pressing her just against his erection.

He shouldn't, not after such a night. She tells him so. He doesn't react. He said he wants to fuck, no indication on who he wants to fuck. 

"You didn't have to do that. I know I shouldn't have… refused…", she is embarrassed about her own embarrassment and she hates that it sounds like an apology.

"It would have happened anyway", he whispers in her ear like the lover he thinks he is, gently rocking her against his dick. She whines. He's not promising that it won't happen again, though at least he doesn't use the easy way out of blaming her for not putting out. She embraces him, and she keeps taunting him.

"So easy… Already?". If he was a woman he would have quite a reputation. The father and the daughter, Force… It disgusts her just thinking of it. But she responds to him all the same. He looks puzzled a short moment.

"Oh", he realizes. "No, I... I didn't. Let it go that far". She gapes, studying his face. He's not lying. But now, does it mean he didn't come, or they didn't fuck, she has no idea. It bothers her that she would have done it anyway, though possibly putting him through more taunts. _He's just going to be more careful now, maybe, if he feels gentlemanly._ If her father doesn't deserve his wrath and he doesn't want to torture him with his daughter's pain. He may allow her more time to speak to her parents if she behaves though, maybe he can grow lenient, complacent, and they could holo without him hovering. Because now he can tell her that poor Lyra really shouldn't know… _You are young, full of life, she is tired and depleted…_ Though she is far from stupid. She has a scientist's mind even unhinged. She will see her husband come home, flustered, bitten lips, smelling like Krennic's cologne, strong enough for some whore but manlier… The idea is harmful, toxic, as Krennic, but while Krennic is busy dangling this in front of her, he doesn't see anything else.

 

She smiles and runs her hand through his hair as if thankful he didn't cheat just as much as she thought he did. _I will kill you one day, Director_ , she thinks, but that's only to encourage herself now because she knows this isn't happening. 

"If I knew I just had to do this to get you to comply…". He's the one taunting now and she pulls on his hair ungently, scratching his scalp but enjoying the molten gold. He seems to notice the undone buttons on her top as she squirms against him. His hand finds her burning skin, rubbing where it isn't covered and she doesn't close her eyes.

"You're mine Director Krennic", she breathes against his lips. He takes it as some sort of backhanded compliment. He doesn't hear the threat, or doesn't want to.


	11. Chapter 11

"You could choose literally no one else in the galaxy".

 

Time passes and still she cannot forget, cannot forgive.

 

Her father.

 

He fucked her father.

 

"What did you do with him?", she asks for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time he dodges. She wouldn't have thought him so coy.

"You know", he replies, his face slightly turned toward the library as if he could read the titles from where he is sitting. She stands, not willing to be too domestic, in front of him or to herself.

"I will never forgive you", she warns.

"I know". There is no doubt in Krennic's mind that he went too far, and worse, that he was stupid enough to have it discovered. He deserves it for being so weak. Maybe these… entanglements were excusable when he was single, a man in the military… But not now. Certainly not with his father-in-law. _Life is not fair, get over it_ , he wants to tell her, but he knows this is more than that. How would he feel, marrying a woman who fucked his father while he was a virgin? Suddenly the situation seems much direr when he is the victim. 

 

"What did you do exactly", she pries, hurting herself more than him. It isn't posed as a question because she doesn't expect him to refuse to answer even though he keeps doing so. "With him". She cannot say dad, certainly will not say Galen. They both know who he is, it's not like there is another man between them, or if there is, he is nothing, just a half hearted release. "Don't they fucking teach you self control at your Imperial Academy or wherever you both studied?". _You both_. He isn't happy to be reminded of weakness.

 

"If you won't tell me…", she circles around him, "Well it makes sense, you look like a girl, of course you would be delicate like one". Jyn sometimes thinks this is the worst for him, jabs at his masculinity. She cannot exactly deny his stamina and male looks yet he cannot deny something almost too gentlemanly in his countenance. Something that could be refinement - up to a limit, kept off the battlefield and the interrogation room. Something his father couldn't beat out of him while his mother retired to her chambers with her Balosar narcotics, the same used in death sticks and interrogation drugs. He tries to forget. He fails. Jyn wears the skirt, but at the moment she literally feels _more_ than him. Her dress crinkles around her feet. They look at each other in the eye at last. "If you won't tell me you'll show me". She circles one time again and stops in front of him. He seems small from the vantage. She kneels in front of him and he inhales just a bit too noisily to ignore. She smirks and considers that she could have moved more gracefully but maybe he doesn't need someone too feminine. Maybe he needs to be that one. It doesn't make her feel good, and she decides to take it out on her lord husband.

 

"I guess… So this is why you chose me, right?". He says nothing but his eyes follow her. She has his interest and more. "You needed a wife who would understand, maybe even do to you what you need… Your dumb little Imperials would never. Oh my". There is poison in her voice. He is still silent. There is force in silence. The silent, heroic man and the silly chatty woman. She puts her hand on his knee and trails upward, pinching when he doesn't react. He seems insensitive to many things, including pain, as he would be after his training. "Not that girlish, Sir", she teases. Then she notices the bulge, half concealed under his pristine white tunic. "Not so girlish at all". She can't help the praise and they both meet eyes again, this time, finding heat. "You do not need him so _why_?". No answer again but she can imagine he rationalizes it. "What if I was your typical little Imperial wife refusing to even consider… You would cheat on me again and again?". Her hatred is aroused just at the thought.

 

"No", he replies for once. But she knows better, or she tells herself she does.

 

"No?", she is still caressing his thigh just where it must hurt. He hisses and his cock twitches under the carefully pressed material. _He would like it all, of course. Pain, both ways_. His eyes are an ice blue inferno darting from her hand to her face. He isn't thinking of anyone else. He is watching her like this is some private show in a decadent Canto Bight private house. But what worries her is that she is enjoying this. "No? You would just cum once a month if she's feeling like bringing you an heir?". There's hatred in her voice, venom, for this woman he could have married. He flinches at the word cum, interestingly.

 

She not too gently grabs him through the pants and he closes his eyes. Where is he now, she doesn't know. She opens the fly, slow, but he hides any impatience he may experience. Her knees hurt already but the Resistance can take it, as well as the Empire. They are the same for once, there is no reason to decide. Her hand finally snakes in, taking hold of him. She wants him to break first, to break down, to give up his control.

"Already?", she taunts. "I thought it was painful". Let him know she knows.

 

He opens his eyes as if the war had been declared with such words. He doesn't completely go all out because he doesn't want her to remove her hand, kneading and stimulating him and he slightly parts his thighs, as if accidentally.

 

"Shameful as it may be, I notice you have the exact same coloring…", he attacks. They both know. Her hand stops an instant then picks up and he groans, his gaze cold again though.

"I thought my hair was too long", she counters as if she wasn't horrified. He grabs it as if to say _show me_. Galen had been the fire to his ice, though ice had burned Lyra… He feels pleasure intensely at those memories, with an edge of hatred. He wouldn't be Krennic if he didn't. She tenses, squirming. Her thighs pressed against each other.

"Suck me my lady", he orders, sugary sweet, with a bitter undertone. It is her turn to look up in shock as if the words couldn't have been used by such a man, or maybe only with other men, during inappropriate bragging or…

 

"Is it what he did, then…?". She hates them both. "He actually initiated? You didn't force him?". For an instant, short but too long, she wishes her father dead instead.

 

"Wife", he breathes, a warning. _You are mine_.

 

"I said it was a bad idea, I told you it would hurt you…"

 

And she bends toward him. Hurt or not, she owns it up. He doesn't direct her, still handles her hair but doesn't pull on it or push her toward his erection. He enjoys seeing her cooperate to the fullest extent maybe more than forcing, which again, is telling for an Imperial. He looks at her, through her, far far away.

 

"You are mine Director", she whispers against his skin. He twitches. A few times she licks and almost takes him but always recoils. "My Director… my…". Husband? 

 

_Yeah sure_. They are married, but there is more to that, something between them… His lips part to draw a shaky breath, quicker than should be if he wanted to maintain the perfect illusion. Lady Krennic is her name now, Jyn thinks, and she goes in deeper. 

 

"And that's enough", he says roughly, shoving her off almost. She is interrogative then she understands.

"It didn't go further than that?". No deeper thrust? No…?

He softly shakes his head, a gold strand falling into his eye. He pushes it back with no more care than he pushed her. 

"You didn't finish?", she asks, unbelieving but the way he blushes deep red is telling. He goes to tuck himself in, ashamed but her hand is quicker and her thumb draws tiny circles on his hole until he leaks. Krennic didn't actually reach the ultimate pleasure, and from the way it seems, he was the one saying stop. She shouldn't be thankful for that.

She takes him in finally, suckling and stimulating. He won't need much from what she can hear. He can't even help it, his hips jerk abruptly to search for completion and she thinks her father would do it in a better way. She can't even suck him correctly, she is nothing like he wants except a young womb for many sons, a young girl to show off and claim he defeated rebellion single handedly… so much that a leader gave him his precious daughter, his own honor… He seems to catch on her thoughts. It is disgusting, really, in a way something unnatural, supernatural. It frightens her enough for Jyn to attempt to not think.

"Alright Jyn", he soothes, and she darts hardened eyes on him as if to swallow back tears. He is as strained as he sounds cool, his body knowing what it wants while he denied and refused. She suspects this is the story of Krennic.

 

She rubs and massages his thighs, a distraction at first but when he tenses and comes it seems to help him along. He bites his lip so hard it is white where his teeth have been, and crimson everywhere else.

He doesn't ask her where he should finish because both know where they want it. She swallows him, milking him for all he has, licking when it becomes too sensitive but not before she hurts him a little bit, her eyes shining in unshed tears.

"Fuck Jyn" he finally says when he can speak. His thoughts went back to her at least. That will never be enough though. She cannot compete. The novelty will wear off, has already done so maybe. 

"Is this the only reason you do that?", he asks. He seems to uncannily understand. Yet though she nods, frowning, she knows that started much before she knew of...

 

"We should go our separate ways…", she confesses defeated as she is still licking her lips. You don't suggest divorce to someone whose taste you chase every time. Normally the bedroom should be as dysfunctional as the living room - maybe it is. Awkwardly she has let go of him and she tries to shield her mouth with her hand so he won't see… He grabs her hand and kisses it where his semen has been wiped. It could be romantic if not for this. She feels his tongue and shivers. She cannot kill him, she will not love him… But she cannot, cannot kill him. _My director…_ "Krennic", she calls coldly so as not to use the previous moniker. "We only hurt each other". That's the truth, not that it prevents them from finding common points in the dark night despite the burning hatred at day, on her side at least. On his it is more disdain. Perhaps it doesn't make it easier.

He looks serious for once, almost as he does when discussing with his engineers, looking for a mistake, a flaw in the reasoning, in the system. He sees only openness on her face and his is even more guarded now. A soldier's face. But his eyes tell the truth too.

"I don't think and I don't mind". The beginning is a lie but it devolves into frankness also.  She doesn't ask what good she brings because he would say something racy just to shock her, or mention the elusive heir. Two things he could have without someone else, yet he chose her and still does. Maybe he just won't acknowledge a mistake and owns it up, too.

 

 

"You hurt them enough, don't you think it is time to end this show?". He cannot deny it is why he went for her, and why he consumated a marriage he wasn't sure he ever wanted. The thought he kept in mind emptying himself into her, finding her blood on his cock, maybe the only thought he could have to get hard. She might have provoked him into more as she was but a prisoner, though the first kiss had also been his doing. She can hardly remember if she knelt for him thinking to really give pleasure… Or to get back at him. 

"You would never have married, if not for this".

Maybe as an old man, for an heir… But never like this, with a rebel, Galen's daughter for Force's sake! She expects an umpteenth lecture on Krennics' customs and cultures, no divorce, life sentence, forever.

"I never thought I would, no". So he goes for the truth, for the kill. "Never thought I could", he almost whispers. Oh. Confessions of quite a private order. Krennic _unable_. She glares still but some of the fire is deadened off… She fears he's appeasing her before deciding such a man wouldn't claim to be unable to get it up. "But don't you see it's working, Jyn? I was the first surprised but it's working!". He could have been speaking of some machine though this time he's talking of more than their marital bed. She wonders if he really considers this a success. Fucking your wife's father. Yes, he had sworn there would be no mistress, and she could believe there actually had never been a mistress - could he consider his affair with a man so different that a wife wouldn't feel jeopardized? Even if he actually didn't come… She doesn't want to build on this, there is nothing for her in this marriage, it didn't even save her father from working for them. Her husband can play it like he didn't mind the genocide, just a rehearsal he said, her father is a dutiful, moral person. It would destroy him. Jyn remembers afterwards they gave Krennic a standing ovation. Oh, how they would die for him, if he just as much as ordered. Thousands. _Krennic, Krennic, Krennic._ As if it was the weapon's name. As if he was the weapon. He was still hard when he came home. But the man himself wasn't as celebratory as he wanted to appear, there had been something lifeless in his eyes. And that thing they are working on… Yet as her mind is screaming from the foreboding - _it won't end well, maybe Krennic himself will be in over his head eventually but he will pretend it is all good and he doesn't care_ \- she lays her head on his thigh and his hand grasping at the hair turns into a caress. This isn't hatred, or lust, or domination, this is much more dangerous, but neither stop.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serge Gainsbourg can claim the reference to the mark of slavery on fingers (as a hint wedding and engagement rings and basically every jewel a possessive husband adds)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuZklVrHspM  
> Clearly the ransom reference is Dune :)

"Quite a story…" Once, she heard of someone mentioning a slave queen. She didn't understand how it was possible to be both. They were opposite. Maybe it had something to do with Leia's… episode at the Hutts. But the person swore it wasn't that. So Jyn asked if she meant slaver instead, some kind of crime queen. You will understand one day, was the reply.

 

 

Now she understands. In society, in public, she is a queen most of the time. Though he sometimes is ashamed of her, she knows, You are part of the highest echelon now, he said: so he does his best to give instructions before so she behaves as he likes. Young, impulsive, naive, this may be attractive in the bedroom, but this doesn't suit a Lady Krennic and as such has to be kept away, as she should. Krennic wouldn't have it any other way. A slave doesn't carry your line, doesn't mix her blood with yours, red on white. She rolls her eyes at the thought. But at home… He was the master of every big decision, and many small ones. She had free reign over dinner and droids and dresses - among those he vetted.

 

Had she married someone poorer, younger, the power balance would be different. Granted the man would have no money, no experience, a mere boy as Krennic reminded her, once. To which she replied that his experience was useless with her and he snarled, because she was right. Mostly…

 

He wasn't the same out of the house either. She sometimes got a glimpse of weakness in the bedroom. At those moments she clung to hatred because it was not weak; she told herself, then, that he thought of her father in order to feed this feeling...

 

The holonet claimed the director fucked around and tortured resistants, as two pastimes almost. _What kind of woman marries such a man._ When she brought it up during a fight, he swore that he never as much as willingly set foot into a brothel. Nor did he, when he had to because some superior officer had decided so, ever been _upstairs_. In time she came to believe it, imagining the younger man defending his virtue against temptations that weren't quite tempting because the right place wouldn't have been somewhere men went together but in shame. In time she came to realize he never defended himself against the second accusation as if it didn't matter, or was so obvious… Or was right, in a way that didn't shame him. In a way that didn't quite taint his honor as a gentleman officer, but was merely an unsavoury consequence of the war. Perhaps it was easier for him to find his fun in an interrogation cell than in a brothel. Certainly than in a girls' house, she thought.

 

One time, one only, she asked again about this. He smiled, half warning half provoking. Then he said they were working on some breakthrough, some new method involving a newfangled drug shot, and that he just needed the occasion. She had averted her face entirely, hatefully shaken, and he laughed again and announced they were retiring to bed early. He didn't take long to be close then, and somehow felt the need to talk about that new method until he peaked. Jyn cringed, disgusted, shrieked something aking to **Shut up** , yet managed to finish and hated herself. She tells herself the details were blurry.

 

Later, when she calls her parents on the holopad, she pretends nothing has happened as she always does. Wouldn't do to have them hear that she goes to bed with a man who is likely to bring up men, or torture, or genocide. She doesn't tell them she flattered her husband into allowing this, and doesn't tell him not to mercilessly taunt her mother about an invisible gain weight. 

"Are we expecting some good news, Lyra dear?", he minces. She bites off a groan. "Oh, of course not. Not getting much, Erso?". Lyra doesn't know if he's addressing her husband or herself and loathes his involvement in their private life - decades of that. "You would do well with a new daughter, now that you sold the older one away to the enemy. Hurry. You aren't as fresh and… ripe as the one you bought your freedom with. Ah, to have the energy of youth". She startles hard and she is sure her parents can hear her gaudy jewelry clicking. The Empire crest, adorned with the Krennic heraldry, the mark of high end slavery on her fingers, around her neck and wrists, pearls and diamonds and stones with odd exotic names she cannot memorize, priceless and degrading. She ripped it off the first time, threw it to the ground, the ransom of a planet at her feet. He didn't punish her. They had caught a rebel, young and idealistic, about the same time. She would never be fully the same after what she witnessed. She wears it always now, so much so that she forgot about it and didn't understand her parents' gazes on those body parts. She has seen the envious glares of women. Women yearn to yield, the Director said, and she suspected his own father taught him that. 

"What did my father did to you", she pleads almost, her eyes searching for her husband's. "What did he do for you to be that way?".

"What did he do? You ask what _your father_ did?". Her mother's shriek breaks her heart. Lyra stands brutally, rage all over her features. "You Ersos will never get it!". Her mother is actually excluding herself from the family, just when Jyn is starting to tell herself that maybe, in a way, she is, also, a Krennic. As if she is a better wife than her mother. As if she can identify with him more than Lyra can with Galen. As if the Empire's Director of Advanced Weapons Research is a better husband than ever suffering, peaceful Galen Erso. Galen who teased Krennic into a blow job only her husband put an end to. She grits her teeth and balls her fists, only for a second… She hopes, too late, that her eyes do not convey the judgment. She can vaguely, hardly see her mother's expression. Jyn averts her face so brutally her hair doesn't quite follow, her eyes suddenly obscured. It is for the best. The Director is obviously getting _everything_ he wanted from this interaction, this marriage, this life. His smile cuts, cuts, cuts. The girl is young still. She doesn't understand that it wouldn't be the case if he hadn't shed tears over Galen - meager tears, yet more than for billions vanished in the twinkling of a baby blue eye, a button pushed, and those people who were not humans, barely lives to Krennic, gone. The director isn't angry that she asked. No. He generally hates the past but for her to betray her mother in such way is worth the sting.

"You should consider it, Lyra", he softly smiles. "It is the worst thing to be lonely". That might be the closest to an answer Jyn will ever get. 

"It is", she somberly comments, thinking of the days with no one but droids, the nights… Krennic's expression is undecipherable when he rests a hand on her shoulder. "Luckily, your daughter will never have to be alone. The beauty of marriage". A taunt to her life in an ivory tower, to Galen he separated from his family as much as was feasible, above all, to Lyra. _The beauty._ The older woman looks at the two people in the holo with a hatred that only burns the one not used to it. When Galen tries to pet her back, she pushes him harshly and leaves the view. Orson remains alone with the two people he knows more intimately than anyone else and his gaze meets Galen's if it to say, _I told you so. She is crazy. I told you long ago. You never listen, look where we are now_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jyn has grown somber, so have her thoughts, she doesn't feel like she is barely out of her teens anymore. Maybe it is an older husband. Maybe it is being married to a man planning mass murder. He cries out her name when he comes but there is nothing like love between them, she hopes. 

 _I love him he betrayed me. I love him_. Not even past tense, he didn't bother using a past tense. She tells herself she is the only woman he has a remote interest in, barring Lyra but for entirely other reasons. He has more than hinted that he pleasured himself to thoughts of taking her before they were married, and it translated, in her mind, as something like being his only female fantasy and possibly the only half normal one. He was probably the first surprised _. It works, Jyn._ She wonders if he still does it occasionally now that he has her, and wishes she knew if he does it thinking of her father. They do not discuss Galen because when they do, she yells and rages and cries and he fucks her with Force knows what in mind. She should ask him, she thinks. Once.

 **** ~~~~


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The passage about dirty hands is literally from Dirty Hands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "It cannot be true. Even you… And, my father…"

 

 

The holonet was sizzling alive with rumors, rumors to which she wasn't allowed to believe, but he somehow didn't really prevent her from listening. One day, one night, he would be called to that super project even her father, though nauseated, was in a way excited about - his engineering mind taking over. In a way, she thought, he could have turned like her husband dear, had he not met Lyra. He would never have rejoiced over suffering, no, but he might have walled his heart away. Adrenaline, pumping in his blood, and she hoped they both wouldn't vent it in the way of a soldier, together, when women were unwanted or unavailable and couldn't understand.

_You don't understand Lyra_

 

"It is true", Krennic mutters. "It is, soon". He would have to go. "We are almost there… It is within our grasp, the glory...". He doesn't seem to be listening to her gasps or noticing the horror on her face, excitement burning bright on his face, bright and cold, louder than cries. Jyn remembers how he kissed his ring, how he had done it already before, and he is doing this again, his lips on the symbol of what he would put first, always, before Jyn, before the very concept of Lady Krennic, before Galen even… And this idea was the scariest of all.

Jyn has tried to discourage Orson - she doesn't still quite think of him as that - to work on that super weapon. Or to at least allow her father to withdraw. He laughed at the first, glared at the second. It was the end of it. She considered withholding again, but she was unwilling to do it, afraid he would cheat - again, and with… - or simply not wanting to be parted from him in such a way.

 

She developed nightmares and refused to tell him she dreamed of planets exploding, and blood, and blood, and blood. He grew nervous, if such a man could be nervous, working like crazy - really working, not sleeping around. He hated that she somehow contaminated him, with her nerves and uncertainty. The project of his life, spoiled by a _girl_. If he was his mother he would believe she cursed the whole event but he blessedly is the farthest thing from the first Lady Krennic. He is strong and alive, he is otherwise closer to his father; if he has to choose it is better than the fragile vessel that carried him.

 

Blood on white material, she sees with her eyes closed. She awakes in a start and realizes she has fallen asleep waiting for him.

"You still up?", his voice says, but all she sees is him, her husband, with slight concern in his ever temperate voice and more red than white. There's some of it even on his pale cheeks as if he had wanted to look more alive, except in death, with death. She stands from the sofa where she had forgotten herself and she runs toward him. Whatever angry cry she may have allowed to pierce the night is now pure terror, naked horror. How many times did she threaten him, promise him to kill him, and to make it bloody? Yet now, not only can she not do it, but the fact that someone else did is more than she can handle. She grabs at the cape, the tunic, his face with frantic hands. She almost tripped into her dress, still unused to the things he forces her to wear. But it doesn't matter. She half rubs half shakes him.

"They killed you!", she finally articulates, her eyes unable to focus, "They killed you I thought you were late I hated you I thought…". She thought he was with her father again but in the meantime someone had shot him. The resistance, of course, and normally she would identify herself as such, say "we"... He probably came home on his last effort to die at her feet, to hurt her or please her or whatever. Maybe, just like anyone, he just craved home. Her tears start falling in a way she would never have planned, would never have been able to fake. 

 

The director is puzzled for a moment and takes a look at himself. Of course. He hums.

"It isn't… _Most_ of it, at least… Isn't mine". His voice is almost usual, though someone who knows him best, as Jyn thinks she does, would hear a vague difference.

"Good good", she says instinctively. He thinks she misunderstands.

"This isn't my blood, Jyn. He tried to kill me, he regretted it".

"Great", she breathes, her eyes closing in relief and as she exhales, heart painfully clenched, she realizes finally what she said and what it _means_ and she opens her eyes, tears falling again. She bursts out crying now, finally, in relief mostly and in hatred for herself.

He tentatively embraces her but she flings herself at him, her hands everywhere at once, caressing and crushing. She presses against him and feels something wet, still warm, and nausea sets in but she won't let go. He hears her mutter Orson repeatedly into the material, her mouth breathing warm against him, and he is convinced she will force herself to forget it and will deny ever saying his name. He holds her. He does nothing else. He is not even hard. This is an interesting development, more shocking than being attacked by some scum. He doesn't tell her so. He wouldn't miss the opportunity to see where this is going, he decides, and he ignores the mere fact that it feels good in an ocean of pain.

 

"You said your friends would try to hunt me down", he jokes. She tenses and when she looks at him, her eyes are red, drowned in tears.

"Not dad?", she begs. She can't bring herself to ask this positively, she has to preface it with a "not". Orson is hers. Hers to pursue, hers to hate, hers to please, hers to hurt, but most of all, hers to hold in life or death. Whatever she did, in a way, was for or against him since she was an adult in her own mind. Certainly she had seen more pictures and watched more films featuring him than anyone else, as if she had been a stalker compulsively collecting. She would defend him if only to kill him because it was her fate, but against her father? 

"No", he coos. But he files it away for later, the fact that this is the first person she thinks of, Galen. Not a rebel, not someone paid off by Lyra. Galen. The man he loves, as much as it is in his nature to love, the man he can't hate as he should and loves even worse, the man whose daughter he uses every night he isn't broken with exhaustion and occasionally when he is to, the only human he can remember shedding tears over, though granted, not many, nor often. Interesting also, the fact that she thinks he, Orson, would kill his… friend. Lover. Arch enemy. As if it wasn't that different, and maybe in the Empire it cannot be so, alliances shifting, friendships souring, and most of all, what they had for more than half of his life was a ticking timebomb, a blazer bomb he should have chucked onto someone else long ago. _May it blow up in that vulgar harlot's ugly face, thank the Force Jyn takes nothing from her_. But, killing… He sighs at the thought. Oh yes, he would, given the need, the absolute, unmoving need. He would pull the trigger and kiss bloody lips. It wouldn't even be a first. But he had avoided it until now and still struggled against any temptation to look into their Stardust project a bit more deeply lest he found... _Let her think I would. Let me._

"He is dead, then", she states. She can understand that, she can respect it. The resistance kills, and dies, and survival is her forte. Before he can think up an answer, he runs his tongue over his dry lips, as if borrowing time. It tastes of copper, slightly, and he worries about his looks before thinking up some internal haemorrhage. Probably not. But. He must look a mess for her to panic so. Jyn is nothing if not strong and resilient.

"I know I said…". She struggles to find her words even to herself.

"I know", he offers.

"It's different when you see it, and think it's real and…". She frowns, she doesn't understand herself.

"I know", he repeats. It is _different_ , yes, when the person is real and warm and breathing and the blood gets on your hands. You can't do much with clean hands. Or gloves.

"I'm glad you're not dead", she says, madly, ridiculously, grabbing his cheeks violently as if she was fighting him and she gives him a searing kiss, meaning to convey something or nothing at once, at all. Her mouth is slightly parted already but it takes him a little time to reciprocate. Death is a powerful aphrodisiac and soldiers are known to partake after battle, even more if stims were involved, but here he wants to keep cool and maybe, just maybe, Director Krennic experienced a bit of fear, rage and doom. Just enough to be sobering. 

 

Jyn tastes blood on his lips - _not his_ , his face is mercifully spared, and shivers. Maybe that's why she doesn't go for more, with more insistence. She fears she feels the substance on her lips yet resists an urge, a weakness. She won't wipe. It's just… She is lady Krennic, after all. 

"So he's dead", she states. He goes all out.

"Not yet, not exactly. Soon". This time, he is himself fully. There is some amusement in his gaze, cruel refinement, and she can guess. It makes her shiver to imagine she might actually know him, the man awaiting his fate, in Krennic's hands. The director had discussed a new interrogation method, which was more akin to torture, as it would, as the prisoner was now closer to dead.

"That is why I am so late. Bastard Tarkin said we had to interrogate him immediately. Didn't let me _change_ ", he rolls his eyes and gestures at his uniform. Jyn gives a high pitched laughter, crazily. So this is why some of the blood is fresh, and this is why he was so annoyed coming home. He probably ran from the torture room to here, hoping no one could see his disarray, and embraced his wife still warmed in the other man's blood. "You remember him right? What a man he is?". Only Krennic can express disdain and hatred and admiration that well.

She sombers down, reminded of the wedding, and he knows it was the wrong thing to say. He takes off his gloves and throws them wherever, for the help or the droid, both basically on same level. Not many humans are fully alive in the Director's eyes, or he wouldn't be leading the Advanced Weapons Research. He goes for the cape, unclasps the insignia and the gaudy stuff she couldn't even name. She bits her lip and averts her eyes when he fiddles with his belt and she doesn't see a smug smile. Don't wear little Jyn down, Director, some officer had joked, and it made him feel manly, normal, not the type who would grope his father in law at the family table willing to carry the feeling along to the nuptial chambers in order to perform. But in the end, disgracing the resistance's poster girl had been easy, or twisted enough to be enjoyable. When she looks again gone is the tunic and he stands in his uniform shirt and pants. There is more blood on the shirt than the tunic, she is certain, but it takes almost a minute to register. When it does she understands on the spot. Liar, she mouthes, hating him for what is out of his control.

 

"You don't care to join me in the bathroom?", he asks, but he is stiff under the joke as if the effort tired him down, awoke some aches.

"You're not moving". Her eyes are dead serious. "Take this off, here". He won't hide, he won't hide this from her. She knows now. He knows she knows. So he doesn't pretend anymore, not as much, and he actually flinches from his own hands on the buttons. Her stomach is doing something unusual and she is afraid she will throw up, or die, or be dramatically out of character. She cannot bring herself to watch. But she does. The shirt gapes, opening on a torn, bloody undershirt and she cannot tell where the skin begins and the cloth ends. 

"I may have been overly optimistic", he warns too late. Oh, _how this is his weakness_ , she feels it will be his undoing. He is impulsive, reckless sometimes under his cold, calculated, controlled appearance. She hates when he is aloof and haughty while she can't help wanting him, but this obvious _fail_ scares her to the core as a child discovering than a parent can be wrong. Krennic is no parental figure, or the worst she could take. Still. Jyn pales. He notices.

"This is war, soldier", he says, harsh. She feels very small, like a cadet. It is easier for him to relate to a young recruit than to a wife, in many ways. "It isn't for the faint of heart", he breathes. _It is for those who don't have one_.

 

Jyn has never believed in fainting and indeed she doesn't, but somehow she dry heaves and her legs cannot carry her. Her husband doesn't catch her before she is on her knees, clutching at him, trying not to completely fall apart. Who would have known there was so much blood in such a cold, pale man. Not so lifeless after all. "Make him suffer", she says, without thinking. "Make him…". His hand is grabbing her left arm and she rests her head against his thigh, this time in a completely non sexual way.

"There is no need to concern yourself. He doesn't deserve… this… I will make him pay for _this_ , my lady…". This makes her stare up, trembling at his tender tone as much as at her words and she wishes she could cry the angst out. He caresses her cheek, leaving a reddish trail. It is the first time he doesn't call her Lady Krennic in anger or taunt or desire. 

"You never need to concern yourself over anything, as long as I am there". She dreamed, she dreamed of blood on white, and… _No, it is unfair,_ just when they found some arrangement, some measure of peace… 

"You are dying, this is why you talk to me like this", she bites, clinging to hatred because everything else hurts. "Oh Force you are dying on me". She doesn't want him to suffer. She wishes she could kill him, make it short, painless for both. No feelings, no strings attached. Too late on both accounts. That explains the tender, the lack of taunt. She wonders if Krennics mourn in black or white or something else, perhaps they don't mourn because only the weak allow death to take them. _Oh no, don't die, don't leave, don't…_

_Don't you dare leave, Erso, don't you dare, Galen_

There is a cruelty in Krennic, that makes it appealing to watch his own wife assuming him dead already, lost to the world, and he enjoys that this pain is not aimed at the fact that it didn't happen at her hand.

"Aren't we all dying?", he ponders, or pretends. "You lost so many friends. I lost…". So did he, but the word friends is an irritant. "I would rather…". He doesn't know. Actually there isn't much he wants. His project is soon accomplished. The Emperor will notice him at last - _long_ last. Galen… is lost, he fears. Killing Lyra isn't bringing him back, if anything making her a martyr would destroy whatever remains, enough though for Galen to go down on him… And Jyn - he found a wife he can actually have sex with, peak and even enjoy as a person - sometimes.

"You hate me, remember". It falls flat, her eyes still not meeting his. If she hates him, it is quite hard to tell. "I am not dying, Jyn. I have seen worse, this house as seen worse, I remember this very rug drenched in red when my grandfather was still around - story for another time - so as arousing as it is to see you fawn and cry over me…". The calculated meanness is just enough to jab her out of it. She stands, refusing his help until she can breathe more freely and doesn't even remember needing it. 

"I bet you don't want to kiss me anymore", he hisses as he shrugs the shirt off and throws it away. "There is something to the dying man, soon gone, soon out of your hair, you can allow yourself to not see an _enemy,_ to have pity, _sympathy..._ ". He doesn't tell her he thought of shooting her and taking her, that first night. He doesn't speak of that boyish enemy lieutenant who all but died in his arms, how his mouth was warm and soft and sweet, and how he allowed Krennic to do this because loneliness was even more hateful- or maybe he wasn't fully there anymore. His mouth tasted like blood in the end.

"You would know", she coldly rages, as she helps him peel off the undershirt. Even like this, his undressed figure awakes something inside her.

"I would, I would". He tells himself the boy isn't really dead as long as someone still thinks of him, even like this. And he was stronger. Jyn is the strongest of this new, weak generation, those who didn't know real war, those not raised for it - born because of it. He didn't falter, he didn't fail. He didn't cry. He wouldn't know how to. He refuses to think of Galen leaving.

 

In the end they take this to the bathroom, and she helps him wash and apply bacta. _This is not so bad_ , is her mantra. Yet for him to actually go out of his way to hide and pretend? He never coddled her. He must have been scared. There is something human to this, and some boundary breaks inside her bosom.

"Do you want painkillers?", she asks. Her voice is overly rough because there is strength in this and tenderness would wear her down.

"We are trained for this, Jyn. And believe me the courses are realistic". He is not bragging, for once. He might have called for his mother the first time, but soon he understood it didn't help. Not that she could be helpful in any fashion. He didn't hate the hapless lady, he just… Didn't want to be soft and in need of a man's firm grip. He flinches at the idea.

 

She sees no scar but the most painful torture doesn't necessarily causes anything you would see. Jyn tells herself the red is bacta, just bacta. She takes in the bruises, the scratches. Oh, she can deal. It isn't much. It is deserved- maybe wanted. She extends a hand toward his torso, caresses the blue shadows making sure he is real and there and warm. She pays no attention not to hurt him and he sighs. She searches for his eyes and finds them searing. The first time hurt, he said. She presses again and he inhales. She doesn't ask whether soldiers play that game and she closes her eyes, not wanting to see, maybe. She approaches, the cold of the bacta seeping through her clothes, and kisses his shoulder.

"Filthy rebels have only _that_ , I guess". He didn't say you filthy rebels, she notes. His voice is more shaking than while she was cleaning the wound. It troubles her, saddens her, that such a man can be unsettled by _gentleness_. But there is no reaction really, barring the sighs and taunts and she removes her lips, embarrassed.

"I apologize", she says. It is not the right time. She doesn't like how she loses control just because he had to be undressed above the waist for treatment. She insists for more painkillers and he confesses to taking some already, as a weakness, as he once relented and confessed he did touch himself thinking about her when he couldn't have her. She leads him toward the bedroom though he knows the way better than she does. She realizes how familiar it all is. Literally putting him to bed, she lets him be when he protests that she doesn't have to undress him and cover him with one more blanket. She tells herself it is punishment for both.

 

"My presence would prevent you from resting", she says, because she is ill at ease at the idea of coddling the Director and more likely, wants to be alone to think. But he takes hold of her hand and doesn't let go, even when she sits on the bed, even when he falls asleep much too quickly for someone who claims not to do pills. _It is what I dreamt of_ , she tells herself, _it is over now. He will not die_.

But the foreboding is strong as ever, and she is actually sitting near the Director, guarding over his sleep, after she made sure his injury didn't kill him - so he can torture his father? Finish up that perfect weapon? Tear trough the resistance with white cruel teeth? _I swore I would kill you, Krennic, I swore, I swore. I can't_. Jyn should have attacked him when he was holding his blaster that first night. The tears are falling again.

 

He groans in his sleep and she wipes her eyes with her sleeve, certain she is applying blood but even blood is better than tears. He doesn't wake, and she finds herself listening for his breathing, checking… "Do not die", she whispers. "My…". Husband? Love? Enemy? There must be a culture somewhere that has a word encompassing all those concepts. Gone are the taunts, the cruel and light headed gallantries. Jyn sighs. It sounds like something she has never accepted - defeat. And the hardest to accept is that it might well be self defeat. As for him, maybe it is one of those victories you hardly realize before they're costing you everything and drag you down, down, down.

_My father wasn't powerful enough to marry down_

 Seems like poor Krennic wasn't either, in the end...

Not quite sympathy for the enemy, as he said, if only because she doesn't know who the enemy is anymore. Him, herself, or... some inkling of understanding of the man he was, because of the woman she had become. _He doesn't love me_ , she thinks, _he cannot,_ _he loves my father_ \- she bites the word inside her mind even - as much as his nature and his upbringing allow. Suddenly it dawns on her that he would never sleep holding a man's hand, he couldn't show weakness to a man, even a man he explored every disturbing concept with… Even a man he explored the darkest fantasies with, when they couldn't share opinions without causing a fight anymore but their mouths, their bodies were still attracted like only opposites can be, cold and hot, black and white, fice and ice, a deathly fusion or fission. But he is there, she is there, Galen isn't, and Orson is clinging to _her_ as he sleeps. He looked years younger, decades purer. Even though he retained a pristine purity even in the worst moments, an angel of death, in death, red on white, red button no doubt he would gleefully push again, as if nothing he did could really sully his soul. As if there was no such thing at all. Jyn has no illusion. She is, and will be, the wife of the man who destroyed the world. _I could slit his throat I could shoot him I have seen so much blood it wouldn't hurt that bad._ She shifts gently, tired, unable to make herself hate him. Though she still considers killing him, freeing her parents, saving her father's soul, saving the solar system, it is so idle she actually fears disturbing his slumber.

 

When his datapad beeps, she closes her eyes as if to block out the sound and prays to whatever deity it isn't loud enough. Same when some aide rings at the door. She imagines Tarkin fuming and smiles in the dying light. It has started. _May they fail. May they do that without him._ She doesn't even think of her father, the head engineer or whatever they bombarded him with. Nor does she allow herself to think it makes Krennic innocent.

Somewhere a planet is burning. The man she kisses and cries for and keeps for herself is a war criminal. Not once did she attempt to free the galaxy of the menace. Somehow she is Lyra, the overprotective, overaggressive wife who rages at those who disturb her husband. _He cannot blame me, oh he'll be mad not to witness this disaster but I'm not supposed to know, a dutiful wife would let her lord husband rest._

Jyn blesses the pill he ingested. She doesn't know where this tenderness comes from. She softly brings his hand to her mouth and kisses it, her lips trailing over the too pale skin, as warm as the ring is cold. They leave a red trail on the symbol it showcases, terrible and telling. She doesn't cringe - he wouldn't want her to. She clutches at his hand harder. In his sleep, he reciprocates.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The books are must reads. Seriously. Can't credit it enough for inspiration and hidden Krennic/Erso gems (kyber).
> 
> Quotes of the day:  
> "Her death and that of his father in a vehicular accident, only a few years later, were brutal blows to his sense of continuity, of permanence. Shortly after those events he met Orson Krennic."
> 
> "You know what I find interesting—or maybe ironic is the word. It’s that each of us wants what’s best for you. In a way, we’re competing to make you happy, as old-fashioned as that sounds. And each of us has a different idea about what you should be doing."
> 
> also, of course. "Galen, who would scarcely raise his eyes when a pretty woman entered a room, in love? It had to be a joke."
> 
> https://root-t.tumblr.com/post/155560887248/orson-krennic-things-from-the-novels-mainly-about  
> Seriously, how does Disney not throw a tantrum or something?
> 
> one last for the road  
> ""Towards the climax it becomes apparent that Lyra Erso, the wife, is somehow nemesis number 1 for Krennic in a totally laughable, domestic drama way that somehow has GALACTIC IMPORTANCE. You'd think Krennic was secretly gay and trying to woo Galen Erso away from his wife the way he carries on.""

 

"Are you _crying_?".

He dreams. The Director of the Advanced Weapons Research doesn't always dream of death and blood.

 

This time he dreams. Of Galen.

 

Galen's parents died when the boys were young, still at the Academy, that Jyn knows. It is of tremendous importance that she doesn't find out more. Galen had never been that way, actually crying. Even when his mother passed, he could keep it together, but his father now…

 

Krennic feels this desire, this need to comfort him. Maybe he just won't handle someone who cries. Maybe he sees it as opportunity. Or the noise is a bother.

"You have to go back there? On Grange?". He tries hard not to sound gruff. He hates to think of Galen on such backwater planet, but his friend had a taste for duty and for the things that remained unworthy of his legendary mind.

"I don't _want_ to. But I have to. There will be…". A ceremony, Orson assumes. Galen shrugs, annoyed. The last attempt at not caring that bad.

"How is it on Grange?", he asks. Mourning. He doesn't say the word. Decorum is pretty inflexible and gloomy on Lexrul, even to Orson's taste, and the Krennics never, ever do things half-way.

"Sucks", Galen mutters, and Krennic laughs. He gets a death glare.

Then tears, again. 

"I can't, can't, can't". Orson ponders that he sounds like Jyn and then he realizes it is not real. 

"Just go. Do it. Go through the motions".

"You would be an expert", Galen bites. Orson doesn't take it as a taunt.

 

The night before he leaves. Galen keeps crying and he doesn't tell him to cut it out because the look suits him.

"I have no one left. Help me", he pleads, and it comes out sounding like hold me. There is no resistance as he tentatively runs a hand along his arm, reaching for the back of his head. He gently plays with the dark hair before gathering him. Galen tucks his face in Orson's neck and breathes. Then sighs.

"Cry all you want", Orson murmurs then. "I'll be there for you". 

Galen hiccups once. "I swear, one day… I'll build a family, I'll…". _Fucking joke_. The Death Star is the closest they will have, their creation. Galen has subzero interest in the few girls they meet. Orson shall make sure it stays that way. Orson's grasp gets harsher. If Galen notices, he doesn't say.

 

The blond boy buries his nose in Galen's hair. He doesn't mean to tell him he smells good. Orson is already filling from the embrace, from Galen shivering in his arms, and his friend's whine could be just another form of crying. It isn't, though. Their love is born from loss, he thinks darkly, it can only end in more of the same. But for now…

Galen presses against him and he is at least as hard. Orson gasps, and Galen's hands trail down his back, resting above what would really be inappropriate. 

"T... touch me", he begs more than whispers. Orson wonders if his friend meant to say take. There is no way he can refuse.

 

Orson didn't wear gloves then. His hand is warm when it rubs Galen's front, the other hand caressing his back, not caring if he occasionally grazes lower, if he even kneads at his ass. Galen pushes back, tries to gain more friction. _Beautiful_. 

"I'll help you", Orson coos. "But I'm not…". He will not abuse the situation, he swears. He cannot let him discover what his tears and vulnerability do to him. When his friend really feels better, when he's back from that forsaken world, they will see. He cannot take him, not when this is so obviously a first for both, not when Galen is in the deepest stage of mourning, not… 

"I just want to feel something. I just want to stay alive". Orson's lips graze against his mouth. Galen nips at him. Even then already, the Director was no stranger to the fact that pain can feel good. "Whatever you want, Galen. Everything for you, always". _I love him, he betrayed me_. In more than one way. _This is what that damned Lyra never understood_. Their first kiss is drenched in tears, as their last will be, but he always did it _all for Galen_. Galen opens for him, gives in, gives up, and Orson, who never forgets, allows himself not to remember his oath.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 15 is there and it's fucking scary.
> 
> Quote on power belongs to Winston Graham. And the mercy shot is my obsession with Coup de grace.  
> "Power is not an endlessly divisible thing. Yet it must exist. Someone must possess it and since man is not perfectable; as you admit, it must at times be misused. Who is likely, to misuse it more: the demagogue who finds it suddenly in his possession, like a man with a heady wine who has never tasted liquor before; or a man who by heredity has learned - and been taught - how to use it, a man who, having known liquor all his life, may taste the heady wine without becoming drunk upon it?"

"Hands up!"

 

Jyn is not like that.

Jyn fights the dark so, so hard. Even when it is intriguing, enthralling, entrancing, even when it is clad in purity.

Jyn dreams.

It is not a first, because she is a warrior. The blaster is in her hand, again, and this time she aims it at the Director. She doesn't wonder where she got it from, but if she was actually the one attacking him before he came home, because such is the nature of dreams. She approaches, seductive, almost as if she was not bringing death as an offering, but lust. Her lips part, she can hardly breathe.

She is unable to shoot, and there is no way next time would be easier, not that there would be one. She has switched from wishing him dead in a horrible way, to saving the galaxy from him yet somehow not wanting him to suffer, and now she can't bring herself to get rid of him. _I saved him._

  


Rey lowers the blaster. Drops it. It falls down, down, down. 

  


Krennic has the upper hand now, perhaps always had. It is not what Jyn would do, approaching still, her hands at her buttons, one, two, three... Cleavage cold in the fresh air, using her feminine wiles. _This isn't me_. Lyra's daughter, vulgar. Galen's daughter, wanton. She bits her lip and the Director's glacial gaze finally is unable to resist, follows her hands. It is useless. Krennic, her husband, probably knows that she isn't the real Jyn, or maybe she doesn't exist anymore, never existed, not as she imagined herself. He wouldn't believe she just had a nervous breakdown and didn't mean any harm, or that she had been forced into this. He would know she cannot be forced or broken. She would rather die. _Then I'll throw myself out the window_. The question remains, will he kill her with his own gun, or call for his men to do it? _No other than me is allowed to lay a hand on the Lady Krennic_. It seems a mercy to die from his hand, a single perfect shot and forever on his mind. Her heart beating painfully, she feels herself tremble in fear and adrenaline. More than one good occasion was spoiled. Because now there is no way another -girl- being could gain his trust and complete the mission. The plan has failed forever. The officer will take this out on everyone, and first on the Resistance. _Dad, mom_. _Whatever you do to me I'll do to you tenfold_. But. Not _you.  
  
__Dad, mom_. She hates that despite the storm of emotions, she ends up wondering if he would want her one last time and if she would cooperate. Maybe they both deserve closure, maybe she is tainted enough to desire him even in such circumstances. Or maybe this hasn't happened yet. There is no time in the realm of dreams.

  


_Write Jyn Krennic_. Did she really hope to marry him and remain unchanged? It would take care of whatever little sensitivity remained after she discovered the reality of fighting for a cause. It bothers her still, and she thinks maybe Krennic is right and these things are better left to men, like too strong an alcohol. She remembers tasting awful contraband liquor. Seasoned pilots could gulp it down with barely any side-effect, while others would sleep, cry or rage. She wants to accept the sheltering, the protection. Worse, she feels that awful, terrible, no-good pull to protect him. Jyn gives a dry sob. She is crying for the woman she had become, for her kin endlessly waiting for her help, for her friends when they would find out, even for him who had come to tolerate her and lost a woman he liked, or thought he could like. When he embraces her she doesn't hold back anymore, real tears hidden into the man's uniform jacket. Maybe if you don't see it… She runs her hands along his back, the gaudy belt cold around the tunic. Her bare legs feel more than naked against the thick luxurious fabric.

**** ~~~~  


"You don't know?", she asks, mouth buried in white, as if she couldn't handle the thought. "Look into your sancrosanct archives. My friends. Your victims. Your… experiments". What is going on is much more important than any love story. Still, she hopes he would be hurt that she chose others over him, and that these others were his mortal enemies.

"I loved you… I love you". She had finally found out one could hate and love at the same time, even if the second one won in the end. She has nothing to lose telling him, though it would haunt him. She hopes, in a way, that he will be left with the memory that she hasn't been able to kill him, but knowing him, he will probably remember her aiming at him. There is strength in this, weakness in love.

  


"Hold me", she whispers, and without even thinking of what a bad idea it is, she adds "Take me". She seeks comfort. She isn't even pleading for mercy, not daring to hope. He doesn't do mercy, certainly not for rebels. Krennics don't, he would say. But he seeks her lips. She gives in, slightly opening her mouth to him. What if the rebellion manages to get back on their feet only to discover she has betrayed? The mere idea is terrifying. And at the same time, she has to deal with the current situation, she cannot stay idle and wait for a possible change. _This is how we stay alive_. She wonders if somehow this isn't her excuse to act in such a despicable way. This cannot be allowed to go too far, to create attachment, she tells herself as she kisses him back, light headed from fear and desire. Too late. Nothing is possible between them - her, a rebel, and him, the man keeping her family hostage, who may kill them anytime. She cannot trust him, and he cannot trust her either. _I saved him_. She hopes he will push her away, because she has already used up all her self control. And yet as inappropriate as it is, isn't it part and parcel of the unwritten rules that the man who takes the king down becomes the new leader? The man who took the resistance down… It all belongs to him, from the luxurious liquors to the most beautiful ornament under his family roof. If he wants to drink it all, he could. If he wants to help himself to the resistance's poster child, who would stop him? Surely, a gentleman would at least wait until she isn't mourning anymore, but then a lady wouldn't throw herself at her friends' murderer… _No, my friends are safe, they weren't there, he said_ … He said.

**** ~~~~

Jyn feels him harden in their embrace quicker than a man who claims not to have time for women would usually. She grazes and grinds against him. Her hand seeks him as her eyes did before, without him even asking, and she pats and rubs there. She wants to deny it is a turn on. His eyes won't let her.  She breaks contact, looks up for clues.

His lips are bruised and swollen though not from fighting and this is all she sees, friends forgotten, until she reaches his gaze, deep and definitely fixated on hers. Such a powerful man and she affects him so. The embrace. Familiar, comforting. Neither would have acknowledged it.  


****  
  
~~~~  


It is divine justice, almost ancient in its simplicity. She wanted him dead for so long, and now it is happening and it is horrible. A punishment for him, for her maybe even more. The blaster -it is Krennic's, sophisticated, gaudy and too heavy for a woman- is in her hand again. Shoot, Galen pleads. Shoot, Lyra pleads. Maybe he hasn't pushed the red button yet. She throws the blaster far, far away.

Jyn is not like that. Or maybe she is. White glove reaching for red button. Coward. She wakes up and she screams.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stop reading here for the bittersweet albeit more moral ending. I’m serious.

“Didn’t want to wake you…”, he whispers. And she remembers.

The first time she gives herself to him completely freely is just after a certain planet has stopped existing. She tells herself it is not his fault, he literally wasn’t there, but she knows the weapon wouldn’t exist without him. And Galen. That one is just an afterthought, as she wakes up to find him still holding her hand, staring at her. Unsettled she gently tries to remove her hand but he won’t let go, as he didn’t in sleep.

 

Somehow his communication device found its way near his pillow. It seems all is fine for him, hence all is wrong for the galaxy. He smiles. _I should have let him die_. But she couldn’t even wake him up after his injury so the odds of this happening are pretty unconvincing.

 

She doesn’t consider he didn’t wake her up because he needed to compose himself after a fever dream, burning indeed. No, he is not telling her he sent her father on his way to her grandfather's funeral still aching from their first time. He is _not_ telling her it still makes him hard to think about that night. How her father cried then didn't cry anymore, and felt guilty for both because he is an Erso. Jyn would say this is an unhealthy way to cope, giving him a little wanted pain to drown down the worse, unwanted one but _i_ _t worked_. It wasn't until later, until feelings - feelings he refuses to name even in his mind - that he even considered giving himself.

 

“That kriffing planet was full of rebels”. Maybe he thinks he has to justify it. Maybe this is pillow talk. He looks down toward the datapad. “Casualties range...”. She flinches as if he slapped her and closes her eyes, shaking her head, not wanting to know, not wanting to hear, because her attraction would still be there anyway but this would make it ten times harder. He only then realizes a wife doesn’t want that. This he could and did share with Galen, even while in bed. It didn’t prevent anyone from performing… But isn’t for Galen’s daughter.

 

“Does it still hurt?”. He knows that she isn’t talking of Galen’s change of heart. He nods slightly and she smiles back, either finding it appropriate that he should suffer or as a comfort. He pulls her closer and though she could absolutely resist, she leans toward him and kneels down. He cranes his neck up for a better look. She doesn’t know why she kisses him. It is not right. A planet died. She gives in to her own temptations, slightly opening her mouth to him. He responds immediately and takes control. Neither willing to say some of the sudden heat is not so sudden after all, passion simmering since they dreamed. Jyn doesn’t resist anymore. What if the rebellion manages to get back on its feet and they discover she has betrayed them so? The mere idea is terrifying. And at the same time, she has to deal with the current situation, she cannot stay idle and wait for a possible change. She wonders if somehow this isn't her excuse to act in such a despicable way. _This cannot be allowed to go too far_ , she tells herself as she is kissing him back, light headed from fear and desire. Nothing is possible between them - her, the Erso girl, and him, the man who is keeping her parents as hostages of their own daughter’s compliance, who maybe would kill them. _I would never hurt him_. She couldn't trust her husband, and he couldn't trust her either. She hopes he will push her away, because she has already used up all her self control. And yet as inappropriate as it is, isn't it part and parcel of the unwritten rules that the man who takes the king down becomes the new leader? Everything around them belongs to him, from the luxurious liquors to the most beautiful ornament under his roof. If he wants to drink it all, he can. If he wants to help himself to the rebellion’s poster child, who would stop him? Surely, a gentleman would at least wait until she isn't mourning anymore, but he never liked to wait and a lady wouldn't throw herself at her friends’ murderer…

 

 _No, my friends are fine, those were strangers_. A dangerous path to follow but she has to.

 

“Jyn”, he whines inside her mouth and she is lost. He doesn't smell of bacta anymore. She either imagines or detects his usual cologne, male but gaudy in a way that now turns her on. In a way her mother just had to notice when Galen came home half drunk and fully remorseful - until the next.

“I hate you, I hate you”, she insists and repeats between each kiss, against his lips. It doesn’t prevent her from grabbing his arm, running her hand through his hair as she clings to him and brings him closer for a deeper kiss. She doesn’t know how long they kiss for. Her knees hurt when his hands leave her hair, one of them trailing down her arm to take hold of her smaller hand and bring it where he needs her. She startles as if she still finds it strange this man is human. Very much so. Though he shouldn’t be hard after blood loss and pills. He presses her hand against himself, through the material.

 

"No, I hate you", she protests, bitter. Madly he fears this is but a fever dream again, because then she could _know_. It is the first time she refuses this. Not that it makes sense, as she kissed him saying just that. Burning for him in anger and desire both, she is afraid not to be able to remain committed to this decision. She goes for the jugular to discourage him.

"It is clear you need Galen to be the man. Or Tarkin, why not? It seemed you liked him watching. Why would you want to try and fail a last time, Director whatever?", she taunts. He chuckles, surprised and not at all angry though he should be. It isn’t like he fails, no, but she instinctively figured that attacking a man about his masculinity would be painful especially in such circumstances, bedridden, injured - as for mocking his title, she was certain Orson could only loathe it. She knows that if she refuses, he could just take her anyway. He is strong enough for that even wounded, should wrath come into play, and she is feeling desperate enough not to even care. She doesn’t imagine someone refined and educated would do this, though, she also didn't imagine that her husband would rather go to bed with another soldier. _This is war_. She looks at him, expecting him to react, and he doesn’t disappoint. He pushes the blanket off him and his hand slides into his underwear. He watches her watch him before he starts and she gasps. It is slow and sensual, overwhelming, as she remembers she once wanted to ask him to do that. “Tarkin isn’t the only one watching”, he teases.

“Show me”, she blurts out, out of breath. He struggles for a moment, and then his garment is pushed off and she sees his hand, adorned with his signet ring, running along his length. “Show me”, she does again. He parts his thighs under her feverish gaze and his hips cant when he gives himself a harsher stroke. Both moan. She reaches out for his hair, playing with a perfectly blond strand. He whines, his eyes darting from his own cock to his wife’s face. She loves that he cannot choose. But then he looks down again.

"I'm not doing that. Never", she protests, even as her hand trails down, and she touches him at last, warm and real and alive. The thought makes her whine. She wants to taunt him in turn but she just massages his length, pressing against the thick head. She bends for him before he thinks of asking. It twitches every time she kisses it. Still silent and still composed. She finds she needs him to react. She takes one of his hands and gently lets it rest on her head, encouraging him to do whatever he wants, almost as if she preferred the Krennic who orders her around. That one at least is acting like himself. There is something frightening to his passivity even though he told her that he sometimes let her father… No. _Oh, but yes._ She isn’t avoiding the thought anymore, not if she wants this to work. This relationship. This marriage. She would have told him to shut the hell up, but now… She has decided she is living with this, living with him… _I am making compromises_ \- _give in, give up, no honor_ , young Jyn would say- _to live with the person I hate most_. Living is one letter away from loving but she rejects the notion.

"So good", she says, looking up for eye contact and licking her lips. If she appeals to his ego that way, she knows him well enough to assume it could work. She still feels the burn of anger yet she wants to pleasure him.

She retreats again and uses her hand, caressing him up and down as he did, never breaking eye contact. She is going to make this last and enjoy it. She will cling to this if some day he comes back wrapped in his cape. Her eyes dart from his face contorted in pleasure, drinking in every small noise and expression, to his dick. "Come on handsome", she teases. “So hard… All this for me?”, she half praises half teases, mocks almost. “And here I was thinking I wasn’t good enough”. The teasing is colored by some dark, more real thoughts. “So hard…”. Dark also, the impulse toward getting him to talk. She tells herself it is only so he confides in her in all things, so she can intervene in his projects… Yet again what for? 

"You should have told me that you liked him. Galen”. She mentions him like an acquaintance. “Quite handsome… I’ve seen the way he looks at you, how he touches his hair like a woman and how you just get so close to him. Would that pass for a mistress in the Empire?”. Maybe she is the mistress, only considered because the couple is falling apart. The new addition, the irresponsible choice, the reckless gamble. The punishment. The very word mistress burns her tongue but she reminds herself it is just a game. _Just a game just a game just a game_ . Her rhythm picks up and he whines. Her question was a half joke yet also deadly serious, after what she had seen and how Galen had behaved a certain night... The Director reacts to him like she imagines another would to a woman, guilty, tempted, except she knows he doesn’t consider women worthy of attention. Jyn doesn’t have the words to discuss this type of relationship and mistress is the closest she knows to shameful, vulgar release for a powerful married man. “We could have done something about it earlier", she taunts. She isn't sure if she means to turn him on or hurt him but he is moaning constantly from her words and her hands. His gaze says, _you don’t have to. But keep talking_.

 

It is one of those things the Empire accuses the rebels of, and the rebellion assumes only exists among the decadent Imperials, rumours of the Academy, caused by their disdain for weak, nurturing beings. Ironically also for strong, educated women. _Wrap up a pastry for what’s her face_. Even her father looked at her with disgust when he took her looks in, seductive and sensual, as if she could have chosen this on her wedding day to their arch-enemy. He judged, despite… _Hypocrite_. It hurts to think it, but she does. _Hypocrite_. Worse than his Krennic. _Hypocrite_. Jyn gives a harsher tug for every time her heart aches, but Imperials don’t shy away from this and he bucks.

 

She is going to drive him crazy with want and he would never look at any other woman. Or man, actually.

Her small hand is running along his length, massaging it and looking for the right spots, with only his face for clues unless he decides to tell her more. He doesn’t. He feels warm and solid under her hand, and she still wonders why this is enjoyable for her. She bends closer.

"Let me handle this, gorgeous". She has only called him so once, and he was hopefully half asleep. She whispers against his manhood, peppering it with small kisses that turn more sensual, open mouthed, over time - and that frankly shouldn't be a thing at all. Nor should she be calling him gorgeous, it is just a bit too real, too truthful. She decides it isn’t tender, just lustful, so maybe she can. What it isn’t, certainly, is a lie. The man she married is a work of art, a masterpiece, blessed by the Force with a perfect face to make up for a rotten mind. If not for this, people would shoot first. _I was never able to._

As her tongue finally finds his tip, laving it and tasting him that way without hatred for the first time, she tries hard to block any mental image of how she has to look, going down on the man she is supposed to kill. _Director Krennic. Director Krennic of the Empire._

 _No, just don't think_. Her dark eyes peer up toward him, trying to assess his feelings, and she takes him deeper, though she knows he is probably too big to fit entirely. Still, she hollows her cheeks and sucks, deciding that if he could come that way, she wouldn't have to get more intimate, and he wouldn't feel that she has for some reason grown wet and warm from pleasuring him. Jyn wants to believe the idea of finishing him with her mouth doesn't turn her on, that it is humiliating and disgraceful, though her face is burning. She is fascinated by him, unable to take her eyes off his face watching for his every reaction, her hand on his twitching cock. She tells herself she is simply drunk on power, enjoying witnessing how much she affects him. She has been quite powerless growing up and later on, unable to save her family or friends on the long term, but now... Her mind provides her with a vision, a memory - she refuses to believe it is a fantasy - of herself on her knees in front of him, his strong hand in her hair and telling her all kinds of things as she is pleasuring him. _What the fuck is wrong with me_ , she wonders. She is fantasizing about sucking him off while sucking him off.

“Jyn, please”, he begs, and she has never heard anything nicer.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heavily and shamelessly quoting!
> 
> The Galen/Krennic and Lyra/Krennic interactions are a thing of beauty
> 
> Last chance to jump off the ship (ah) before the horrible immoral end.

"Like that?", she asks after she lets go, wrist giving a little twist. "Tell me what you want handsome". Flattery couldn't hurt. Her voice is throaty and breathy even to her own ears, a hot and heavy feeling in her abdomen.

“You love that”, he chuckles. It bothers her to be so easily read but maybe it would help him to know. _This should only be for someone you love_ , she thinks. In fact it would have been more natural for her father to service Krennic that way. It should have been for a chosen, beloved husband, one who would insist she doesn’t have to do so. _Don't think that because you are Lady Krennic, somehow I can't have you kneel for me._

“Hate you…”. She kisses his length, tasting him before she finally takes him in her mouth starting with slow and shallow. She licks the tip, feels him pulsating every time her head bobs up and down. She wants to be disgusted, she should be... But she isn't. He trembles once, twice. Her hand replaces her mouth just long enough to speak.

 

"That's it my Director, you’re there".

 

She is in shock over what she is doing but this time she doesn't feel like crying. The taunting hardly makes it less intimate. She instinctively licks a bit of precum remaining on her lip. Her hand still tugging, she leans toward his face. She kisses him, hoping he can taste himself. He is probably used to it, she thinks bitterly, both angry and aroused. She is now wondering if she could get him hard again after she finishes him, so she won't remain frustrated. She grabs him as they kiss, tongues competing for control, pushing her bosom against him.

 

"You still didn't prove me you are man enough. Anyone can just let things happen… You don't need Galen to show you how to come, right?”. This is nasty, perverted, this sounds like the insane taunts he would give both his wife and his lover, maybe even some particularly detested subordinate he can’t fire, what he can only dream of throwing at Tarking, and she hears it coming out of her own mouth. _Those Imperials sure love to hear themselves talk_. She suddenly fears she is going to develop an Imperial accent over years, decades, by his side. She will sound like Tarkin. She will hate like Tarkin… Her children will grow up on bloody legends and propaganda and hatred of their own kin. She has to bear him a son first, such a man would want...

“Director?”. It is risky to remind him of who he is yet he is so aroused he will let it slide, let her lead, still. She takes him again, sucking him like someone she cares about, like someone who feels for her too - she has to believe it for her own sake. Maybe she just likes doing it. Which would be unspeakable. _The Erso girl sucked off the Director to pay for her parents’ survival. This should be for someone you love._ She hopes it will both win and break his heart, not hers.

 

His hand searches for her hair, his fingers appreciating the silkiness. He directs her where he wants her. “A bit harder, pretty”. She ponders that to many he would be closer to the definition of prettiness. This time at least, the man has no problem letting her know how he is feeling even though one really shouldn’t discuss that kind of things - one wasn’t supposed to do them either. It seems that they are past the puns and play on words and teasing, and for now it suits her well. He is so turned on already, so close and leaking, and this only incites her further. She gently suckles and he whines, she does it a bit less gently then, trying to pay attention to his expressions, though it is getting difficult to be concentrating while her own body is reacting to the situation.

 

Normally composed even under duress, he holds nothing back suddenly. He calls her as if dying and afraid she won’t be there in time. She keeps her fist tightly gripped around the base, moving her hand up and down as she continues to please him with her mouth. She looks up at him then, a gleam in her eye, and even though she doesn’t stop moving she seems to nod that she understands. Agrees. Her hand and lips are tight around him and he pulses and throbs as he comes. At first silent as if under shock at the violence of his pleasure, he is soon groaning and whining. Orson isn’t sure it has ever been that way. The fear and the glory, the exhaustion and the blessed rest, and Jyn. She tries to take him all the way down, and her hand on his thigh is pinching way too hard. He startles when it gets painful and she does it again, just slightly less so, because she doesn’t want to hurt him too much. It is a heady feeling she has as she pulls her mouth off him when she senses he is done.

 

She is committing everything to memory. How he looked, how he tasted, how he sounded. Because she cannot ignore that tomorrow, or the following day, or in one week, someone could take him from her, or even ironically target her. She imagines a rebel with his blaster between his teeth, sneering as he can while he silently slides toward an Imperial. _I am no better than those Imperials. My side doesn’t do this_ , she tells herself. Then she looks at her husband’s face. Jyn is a risk taker sometimes, but not always.

 

Orson probably couldn't remember the last time someone did that to him with such enthusiasm. Maybe never. He stares at his wife, kneeling at his side, near the bed. His wife. Jyn still half worries that he is shocked, will freak out and judge her more fit to be a harlot than a wife, send her away because of this...  She doesn't really think he would go as far as that and tries to subdue the shame. _I wanted it._

She licks her lips, not hiding this time, erasing any trace in case there still is some and showing him she loved it. She maintains eye contact. Dreading and begging for comment, for anything.

 

It would be hypocritical to pretend she did it because it isn't real sex for her or not really betraying the cause. She certainly isn’t celebrating his victory, but… The truth is that she is a traitor now, and she has fallen way down, way low. So why does she feel on such a high? She smiles, not nicely, and he twitches at the sight as if he could read in her mind as those Jedi knights are supposed to do; or were before they all but disappeared. They go for it at the same time, she touches his dick and he grabs her hair, and their mouths meet mid-air. It doesn’t take much, he is hard quicker than he thought realistic. _I am alive. I am alive and she wants it. Jyn Erso, Jyn Krennic._ His ego is so inflated he feels he rejoices more about the second statement than about his survival. Maybe he doesn’t really believe he is mortal. He is hard any way, without caring to analyze anything for once. While he ponders if he has enough energy to throw her onto the bed, she pushes him back not unkindly when he tries to sit up. “No”, she roughly protests. He only smiles when she rises, slowly lifting up her skirt, staring straight at his eyes, glacier and brazier.

“Show me”, he repeats what she said, and she complies as he did, his self control cracking from all the recent events. He half heartedly works on not showing it, but his parted lips glisten and his torso heaves. He is fully hard without touching himself when she finally settles down and he fills her. He could control this, too, but he really doesn’t and she thrusts long and slow, then quick and harsh. She grabs his wrists, pinning him down. He chuckles to hide his trouble. He is so stiff it hurts her just a bit, just the right side of too much, perhaps a punishment for her sin. She bucks and utterly takes him, uses him, as she imagines he took her father. She hardly balks at the idea… That pain is even lighter now. She feels it start quick and hot inside her, where he fills her, and she fails to slow it down even a bit. Can he finish like this, without what he normally needs, without even the power of the position, of impressing a rhythm? She circles and thrusts, tries to do what helps her own pleasure along. She ponders the possibility that he won't come and that she should just find her peak and then give him her mouth or her fingers, something less involved he can imagine anything, anyone, during. But she notices he barely restrains himself so she goes on doing the same, just quicker. It works. _It works, Jyn_ . This carefully controlled man is thrusting up, unable to maintain any type of rhythm, because of little her. His grunts turn into moans and there is surprise, arousal and some kind of almost displeasure on his handsome features. She wonders if her father often led, or took him only once, and how he handled it. He didn’t give her any detail, for once. She would know if she was a Force-user to read into his mind, perhaps it is great she is not one. "Come for me", she wants to tease but it comes out like a plea. _Only, only for me_ . If he minds he doesn't say: he deserves the jab. "You're there, just…". _Keep doing whatever you do, let yourself have this, give us a chance_. Jyn circles above him, moaning, she doesn’t think and her fingers go for his red lips, his fair cheeks, his hair. Molten gold, a honey crown. “My sweet…”. He stifles a gasp. Immediately he thinks to bring her down, to be the one on top, but he wants to see her come so he grabs her hips and pulls her toward him as he often did with his first Erso. There is just enough surprise for her to startle and keen when he reaches something inside her. She peaks, blinded by light, wondering if this is what those planet dwellers last saw, and she cants her hips madly until he is there too, unable to help it. She is so light-headed he has to make sure she doesn’t fall off him, she is soaked when he eases her down into his embrace. It is definitely not all him. He tells himself he got her so wet and the delicious revenge is second to the satisfaction of her desiring him. She instinctively nestles against him, listening to his heart beat.

 

“Well?”, she asks, almost somberly. _Where were we? What was this?_ There is no reply, as she expected. She used to let it go but not anymore.

“I am not a mind read magician, a Jedi or whatever your Empire denies still exists. You have to tell me. Tell me. Tell me!”. There is despair in her plea. He doesn't, but he caresses her. He seeks her bare skin. He tells himself he deserves the pleasure, and she thinks she deserves the pain of experimenting it. He is taking off her clothes before he realizes, his hands at her buttons, hating that he chose such complicated garments, unsure other women clothes are better though because he never had the occasion - sought out the occasion… He wishes he could reply something clever, cutting, something Krennic. This affair… No this _arrangement_ with Galen. It was nothing. Years of nothing. Decades of nothing. Hatred and tears and kisses over nothing. He doesn't really believe that. The Grand Moff had been right for once, right in his assumption that Jyn would build him as much as she unmans him.

“Well”. His voice is quite breathless. “It was worth getting injured just for this”, he teases.

“No”, she protests too quickly, then understands it was a joke. She finds just enough energy to crane her neck up and her eyes brim with tears when they meet his as if her soul is crying for both of them.

 

"Jyn", he suddenly says, and she fears he is delirious when he goes on. "Did he ever give you that stormtrooper doll I bought for you?".

"What?". Then she remembers. The gap between them, age the least significant of it. "Oh, yes. I didn't keep it for long", she adds sheepish. "Mom thought there was a tracking device inside". She says it as if Lyra is crazy. Maybe she is.

"She was right", he replies somberly. They had always fought for Galen, maybe more than for ideology. "So this is why…". This is why he couldn't track them down. Until he did. "When your father left…". He won't tell her he literally shouted for Galen in public. He won't tell her he broke his datapad, the one with dozens of blueprints and sacrosanct lists. He seems lost in a nightmare too, as she had been, somewhere between past and present. She puts an all-knowing hand on his shoulder.

"They would bicker about you. Even years after. Well, mostly…". _Mostly mom_ . "She said you were jealous, that you were obsessed". _Galen you're in his blood_. "He defended you". Krennic sneers, refusing to believe. "He did! Until the very end, until it was impossible". She doesn't know why she feels the need to speak for her father. To comfort his jilted lover she has just fucked and gotten off.

"She won in the end", he complains, and she crushes an urge to hit him.

"You took everything from her". Her freedom, her dignity, her daughter. "And she doesn't know exactly how much". Lyra will never learn the details of their marriage. _Never never please_.

"She took Galen". He only then realizes who he is talking to. He sighs. He wishes he could be sorry, but guilt is not productive and doesn't make anyone feel good. "I never wanted all this. She threw herself at him, he was afraid to hurt her. He was never interested before he met her, he barely looked at a woman until...". She won't comment. Let him play victim. Perhaps the Director figures out it is low even for him to be discussing this with Galen's daughter that he forced into marriage. He falls into silence as some fall into despair. Jyn doesn't comment on the fact that for all his distaste for Lyra, he ended up willingly marrying and fucking Lyra's daughter. Maybe this is actually why he drops the subject.

"As you say", she states flat, no poison left to seep through her words. It is one step above a ‘whatever’.

 

"We could have them for dinner one night". He must be delirious. Her gaze seeks him out and finds him apparently conscious. "Not too often", he warns, roughly. "If that would please you". Jyn has to think. It does please her, but she is afraid to face either of them for various reasons. But yes.

"It would. Please me". He doesn't comment on the awkwardness and she remembers his confessions about his parents, and more: what he didn't mention. She wonders if he will shame her, shame them, as on the holocalls, at the family table, _open for me, sweetness_. If they will share this strange domesticity she picked up when her father was literally in the middle of them.

A young couple hosting the in-laws, except the groom is allowed to decide everything and tried to kill at least one person he dines with, maybe two of them - threatened all three. He also fucked two of the people that would be present, and even ignoring the fact, this would be quite inappropriate an event. But Tarkin will not be there to glare.

"They will want to see you, both of them", he tries, unusually perceptive even for a man who lives on lies and high-level security. "Nothing in this… pitiful story, is your fault. I’ll be there for you". The last sentence is slightly slurred, shaming him more than apparently everything else. This would have been enough to reduce her to tears once upon a time, now there is just dry relief. She has no idea he made a similar oath to her own father and might still be thinking he is being there for Galen. In another world, troopers shot Lyra dead, Galen refused to cooperate and she could have been Orson Krennic’s ward. _He has no idea how I feel. He has no idea I betrayed already._

 

“Maybe, you know”. He resists an urge to tense. There it is. She is going to ask for some impossible favour. She will bring up her parents. She doesn’t. She sounds young, much too young, for such power games. He finds it both utterly disturbing but also in the end, entirely expected, that a girl would develop some kind of obsession on him. He lives for that. He doesn’t even fuck them, the girls, he just feeds off the fire he kindles in their soul and leaves them deadened. Yet this is more. If he could have remorse, if he could consider apologies, it would be now.

“Maybe, during the day, you could ask your assistant to send me a message just so I know you… everything is fine. He could just send one or two words?”. He searches for the taunt or the joke, doesn’t find it. She is vaguely hoping he will retire early, not resign, certainly not defect but… But. No way. Would it even be safe? His victims’ loved ones would still wish him dead and she understands, because the very idea jolts her out of her reverie. There is more quiet despair than protective anger when she asks: “Why weren’t you more careful? How I am supposed to ever sleep again?”. She brings up a light hand adorned in heavy jewelry to his bruised arm. Now that he knows, now that she knows, she doesn’t care to hide anymore. “You’re not one of those men who dies for the cause”. Once upon a time, it would have been a taunt, but it is a plea, as she feels him warm and alive against her, inside her, leaking.

 

What can he say and not lose himself forever? He wants to speak, for the first time. Words choke him. He didn’t know it was a thing. Nevertheless there is no way he will tell her he managed to talk himself into fucking her only during the wedding ceremony. There is no way, but he whispers it. That he almost chickened out several times. That even when he decided he wanted to, he was unsure he could, at all. How she was wet and pulsing around his fingers when he figured he was hard enough and he should give it a try because it possibly wouldn’t happen again. This was why he constantly taunted and insisted and didn't want to delay, ironically, more because of his reluctance than hers. She looks at him as if she doesn’t know him, and maybe she doesn’t though there is no one closer to doing so in the universe. Some cultures call it carnal knowledge, she heard, and now she understands.

 

He doesn’t say it, but he remembers thinking the father had been his first, did he really want the daughter as his other kind of first time? He had felt her lips already, maybe he could just get her to relieve the tension, or forget about it entirely, forget her crying out in pleasure. But he went for it and now, he is not regretting it. He realizes she has to know. _It works Jyn, I never thought it would_. It looks like he confessed before she did and just only reinforced this certainty. He sighs, his hands on her breasts, not wanting her again yet but accepting a distinct possibility, now that he has tasted it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”, she asks, desperate, “Why?”. Her eyes shine like a thousand suns, like an image of beauty, like laser beams, like death coming for him.

 

“My Jyn”. This doesn’t sound like pure possession, like my droid or my servant; he all but begs her not to tread this path. This uncharted territory is scarier than the unknown regions. Every word, every gaze is a ticking time bomb. There is something physically preventing him from taking a full breath. He doesn’t know it is terror. Jyn mistakes his silence for more.

 

"What are you doing?...", she mutters, anxious. He gives a breathy laugh.

"It is not what it looks like. It always looks worse… Actually when it does not, that is when to worry and…". Jyn interrupts the first year cadet speech with a harsher rub against his shoulder, bruised and tender. She wants to kiss it, to hurt him further. "Not dying, if that's the concern".

She rolls her eyes too dramatically. "As if I would care". He smiles gently now. He looked older when she first treated him but now there is an openness on his face that could only come from the pills or something unmentionable. Even getting him off isn’t enough of an explanation. They married as enemies, hurt and hateful as only an embittered family friend can turn and rage and tear apart. They went to bed as a married pair, which does not mean much love-wise in the Empire except that she isn’t supposed to physically fight him off -though she assumes it is a regular occurence. They would get up as lovers.

  
The Director stares into Jyn’s eyes. Taking care of a pesky rebel is nothing compared to this internal inferno. He is the first to break eye contact, strikingly, his long and golden lashes fluttering once. She is sure he never averted his gaze shooting a blaster or blowing up a planet, she knows because she saw. There is a surge of anger and hatred at the memory. It doesn’t wash away the previous emotions she felt for him. Jyn can sense he is afraid and it only makes sense in this situation. Jyn would be afraid too, maybe she is, but she has grown used to it, she has grown up with it. She doesn’t force him to look at her. She holds him, caressing him slowly as if she never touched him before. “I am here. Nothing will happen to you”, she breathes fierce. She doesn’t know if she means to protect him from her people, from his own or from himself. _I swore to kill him. What if I have to kill for him._ She shouldn’t even consider… She tries to summon up shame, regret, indifference even. She gives a silent sigh. _This is Director Krennic. Force. Force forgive me. I can’t like him, but I love him. I’m in love. With him._


	18. Chapter 18

-Don't hate me! I have the opportunity to publish this… But I'd need a dedicated, passionate beta reader who would of course get the final result for free, as well as the sequel I'm writing for it. Please leave a comment/email/whatever :*-


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